Hi Jenny Quite happy to take the opportunity to explain our attitude to copyright as far as the Hampshire OPC is concerned especially as there has been an incident recently where we had to put a notice on our website after another webmaster copied some of our data and placed on his website. Although the original registers are in the public domain, there are several who claim copyright including Diocesan Authorities and Record Offices alike. What we do know is that a transcription from an original source becomes the copyright of a transcriber - but this does not pass to anyone who copies an existing transcription even if the words are slightly altered. The whole concept of the OPC is to make parish register and other data freely available to family historians who are genuinely researching their own family trees. We are totally against and will not permit wholesale sections of data being reproduced whether this is for commercial use or not. We have built in a few safeguards in the transcriptions so that we will be able to identify if data is being copied. We have no objection to individual transcriptions being placed on family trees provided due acknowledgement is given as you suggest, although we would add that the name of the individual transcriber is included as per the transcription page in question. However, if the data is later published for instance on the internet or in a book, we would expect that the publisher does seek permission beforehand. We would certainly not be unreasonable in this respect. Hope this helps Linda & Tony -----Original Message----- From: eng-ham-portsmouth-gosport-bounces@rootsweb.com [mailto:eng-ham-portsmouth-gosport-bounces@rootsweb.com] On Behalf Of Jenny M Benson Sent: 19 August 2008 04:31 PM To: eng-ham-portsmouth-gosport@rootsweb.com Subject: Re: [PORTSMOUTH-GOSPORT] Hampshire OPC Upload > > Thank you to all of our volunteer transcribers - their hard work should be > appreciated by all Hampshire researchers and their copyright respected. > I am very grateful to all the researchers who transcribe for Hampshire OPC - their work is much appreciated. Please can you clarify about copyright. AS I understand it (and, of course, I may be wrong) one cannot copyright information which is in the public domain (such as BMD information) but can only copyright your own presentation of such material - ie formatting and layout. Presumably, if one aquires information from the Hampshire OPC pages at Knightroots and incorporates it into one's genealogy reports, web pages etc, with a source citation such as "Hampshire OPC at www.knightroots.co.uk, citing XYZ Church Baptismal Registers" this is quite acceptable and doesn't contravene anyone's rights? -- Jenny M Benson ------------------------------- To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to ENG-HAM-PORTSMOUTH-GOSPORT-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes in the subject and the body of the message