Good point Virginia!!! Hopefully I can help somewhat as a lot has changed concerning hosting sites and copyright law since USGenWeb was started. The design copyright of a county page remains with the former CC. This includes page layouts, colors used, graphics and other html language and programs such as java script. Control of the raw data or content copyright stays with the submitter even if that is the same as the CC. By virtue of this copyright, any and all data can be removed from a USGenWeb County site at any time at the request of the submitter. This is the basic principle of copyright law. CC's must show who submitted the data to respect their copyright. The USGenWeb project is just the same as any other organization or business utilizing the internet to publish information on the web. It cannot write it's own rules concerning copyrighted materials and keep information that submitters donate without providing upfront disclosure that submitters are giving up their copyrighted information by submitting or sharing it with a USGenWeb county site. This is called 'terms of service". In absence of this disclosure, the only thing that a data submitter has obviously allowed USGenWeb to do is the massaging of this data visually for displaying on a web page. That's it!!! And, this is not the same thing as assuming 'copyright' of data. Everyone needs to read Yahoo's "terms of service" and see what happens when anyone posts anything to a yahoo site. Go to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/ and scroll down abt 1/2 down the page. Yahoo takes over the full copyright privileges if anything in the form of written data is submitted to yahoo!!! Not just the rights to display that information in a web page, but to further reproduce that data in other media formats..such as CDs...which they can turn around and sell or put in a database and charge access to that database, etc. The rights of data submitters to USGenWeb Project must be protected by CCs of the USGenWeb Project. This is the reason why USGenWeb guidelines have stated that a copyright blub must be on all USGenWeb pages so no one tries to steal USGenWeb info; but, that doesn't mean that USGenWeb has taken over anyone's individual copyrights. To protect our raw data, this also means that a CC cannot upload their county pages to just any server that will lay claim to it by their "terms of service". It is imperative that all CCs read a web hosting site's "terms of service" BEFORE uploading their county pages!!!!!!!!!!! WARNING...any county site uploaded today to yahoo, angelfire, msn, homestead, aol, or FTM, even your local ISP's free web space are jeopardizing USGenWeb data submissions' copyrights. This is also true for personal genealogy sites uploaded to these places!!! This is also true when uploading genealogy data to most message boards!! This is also true when uploading an individual's FTW file to FTM. For help in locating great places to host your county site that avoid these problems AND have no popups, visit: http://www.ancestraldesigns.com/designtips/ and click on "Finding a Home". C.A.T. Carol Ann Tindell, Blue Ridge, GA CC for Fannin, Dawson & Old Walton Cos., GA ----- Original Message ----- From: "Crilley" <varcsix@hot.rr.com> To: <GAGEN-L@rootsweb.com> Sent: Sunday, February 23, 2003 8:21 AM Subject: [GAGEN] Credit for work > As our counties continue to change hands, it would be a good thing to be > sure that proper credit is given for work that has been done. > > Many times it is by an individual contributor and most of the time, I think > these are documented. > > However, if the CC does the work, out of modesty he may not always state > that on the page. Then when a new CC "assumes" the page, it is passed > along, but the person who actually did it is sometimes lost. > > Sometimes even the "previous" CC's name is lost and forgotten. > > I've not been clear about the "copyright" which is recommended that we > include on the pages. > > Should this copyright continue to say the original person on the page where > he did the data? > > Or does the new CC place their name on all the pages? > > Virginia Crilley > > > > ==== GAGEN Mailing List ==== > Do you have a suggestion to include in our taglines? If so, please write > GAGENWEB-L@rootsweb.com > >