Copyright for unpublished works confuses me, <http://www.loc.gov/copyright/circs/circ1.html#hlc> I assume these writings have never been published before. In that case (if I read the documentation correctly) the copyright on works written before 1978 and never published is the life of the author plus 70 years, or 120 years total for anonymous works, EXCEPT that copyright will not expire before December 31, 2002 in any case. If the work is published before 2002, the copyright is automatically extended to 2047. Why? I have no idea. Presumably, if I found an unpublished Mozart concerto in my grandmother's attic and published it before 2003, I could be sued by Mozart's heirs for royalties. Madness. Practically, I don't think you have anything to worry about. If you file it away in a library-type setting you aren't offending any copyrights because you aren't making copies. If you publish this history (in a book or on a web site) and someone objects, he/she must be able to prove that he/she is in fact the author, or the author's legal heir. I doubt there would be enough money involved for the author to think it worthwhile suing you for damages. You can also take the facts from the history and rewrite it in your own words, after which you will own the copyright to the rewritten history and can choose to donate it to the parish or make it public domain or whatever. Simple facts, and things which are (or were) public knowledge, can not be copyrighted. Only the individual creative expressions of the author can be copyrighted, and if you rewrite it, that creativity is yours. I don't see how the membership status of the donors' ancestors has any bearing one way or another. on 10/4/2000 3:19 PM, [email protected] at [email protected] wrote: > Hi, > I've just taken over a parish archive. Someone wants to share a history of a > church. > The submitter has 5 pages of information of which the source is unknown. The > person also had relatives that attended the church in the late 1800's. This > is my first > experience with accepting information from a submitter. Thanks for any advice > on this subject.