> If you are quoting parts of another book somewhere, I think that is OK, too, > as long as you give the source. Of course, another question would come up > if you plan to publish the book for profit. Maybe someday this misconception will go away. Except for the Fair Use exception, copyright-protected material can not be used without permission no matter whether the use is profit or non-profit. > Australian copyright guidelines may be different than the US. Scott, > you're one of > the experts here, what do you say? > In general, the Berne Convention (an international treaty) makes copyright laws of most countries pretty similar to one another. >> >> It seemed to me that my 'fun' and fascination quickly ended when I began to >> look at copyright issues. Went to the Australian Copyright Council website >> and downloaded the Aus. Copyright Act. Boy oh Boy! Hundreds of pages of >> complicated legal terminology - I wondered if I had incorrectly chose the >> wrong language as a fair deal of this is not in the English language my >> limited knowledge understands. >> >> Since then I have found various booklets published by this same Copyright >> Council and some of these relate to family history. Have ordered a book >> from them and look forward to being able to see just what this copyright >> caper is all about! >> What exactly is the cause of your concern? First off, be mindful of copyright expiration. Under US law, anything published before 1923 is now public domain. Copyright protects creative expression. Therefore, in general, copyright does not protect facts. Copyright can protect the arrangement of facts in a narrative or other format, but not the underlying facts themselves. Thus, you will find many biographies written about famous people, all of which include the same facts about their lives. The biographies are protected by copyright, but the underlying facts are not. (Of course, it is both good scholarship and proper etiquette to cite the sources for the facts you use.) One further point, anything found in a government document or official government record is automatically public knowledge and part of the public domain. Any photographs you plan to publish will be protected by a copyright held by the photographer or his/her heir (who, for these purposes, you can assume is the current owner of the photograph). You will need the permission of the copyright holder. Since this is a family history, I assume you already have permission to use photos that were shared with you, or such permission would be easy to get. For a privately published family history with a small print run, it is probably safe to assume that by sharing photos with you, the owner is giving implied consent to publish. And of course, old photos are public domain. Any stories written by other family members will also be protected by a copyright owned by the author. Again, since this is family, permission to include the story may be implied, or is easy to get. And if not, you can always re-write it. Basically, I can't really think of too many copyright issues with family histories. My own project includes a number of old photos and my great-great-grandfather's manuscript, all of which predate 1900. I am including a 1966 manuscript by my great-grandmother, which she wrote with the explicit purpose of recording and sharing family stories. The only thing I plan to include that could conceivably violate someone's copyright is a cemetery photo taken in 1927 and sent to my gg-grandfather by a distant cousin. Maybe you can tell us some of your specific concerns. -- Tom Thatcher [email protected] <http://members.rpa.net/~thatcher/> <http://wc.rootsweb.com/cgi-bin/igm.cgi?db=thatcher-th>