I find this subject terribly confusing and as evidenced by the discussions of late on USGenWeb Discuss, I certainly am not alone. From our bylaws and guidelines it is very clear to me that as a coordinator I must comply with copyright laws/rules, as confusing as they are and as argumentative they’ve been within the project. However, I cannot find anywhere in our bylaws/rules that states I have to ‘post’ a copyright statement on my website. If that were true, I would think USGenWeb or the State would have a required ‘statement’ that would be consistent across the project. As it is, when a statement is posted on a website it’s a statement that reflects the interpretation of the coordinator. If I am missing this requirement for posting, I would certainly like to be directed to it. I think Karen’s note is an excellent note and the best description I’ve seen as a guideline. I just don’t find where a posting is a requirement. Sincerely, Mike From: Karen De Groote via Sent: Thursday, March 19, 2015 6:09 PM To: List MNGenWeb Subject: [MNGEN] USGenWeb Requirement #3-Copyright As promised, the separate message on copyright. 3. You are required to adhere to the USGenWeb copyright policy. IF your index page contains a copyright statement it must be a current copyright so if the year is 2015, your INDEX page needs to say 2015. A copyright is as simple as, ie: " © Karen De Groote and Individual submitters, 2015" The USGenWeb Bylaws, section X, deals with copyright of our pages and you should be familiar with this section. http://www.usgenweb.org/volunteers/bylaws.shtml. If you want to read more about copyright you can visit this page: http://www.usgenweb.org/volunteers/copyright.shtml. Your other pages do not need to carry a current copyright. If you made them and posted copyright at the time they were made, you can leave them be. Current copyright on the index page provides coverage for all of your pages. It would be far better to remove a copyright statement rather than leave an out of date one on your index page. You want visitors to know you are there and current. If you want to use a good copyright, you are all welcome to use the one I use on my counties and edit it for your own counties. Having a copyright on your page makes protection of your work so much easier. Many major servers respect copyrights and if someone takes your web pages and posts them as theirs on a server, that server will shut them down immediately. I know this happened with GoDaddy recently and have heard other big companies will respect a posted copyright. My copyright is worded as this, in small font, at the bottom of my index page. You may use it on your page as long as you change the county name: Copyright © MNGenWeb 2015 MNGenWeb Stearns County: In keeping with our policy of providing free information on the internet, data may be used by non-commercial researchers, as long as this message remains on all copied material. These electronic pages may not be reproduced in any format for profit, nor for presentation in any form by any other organization or individual. Persons or organizations desiring to use this material for purposes other than as stated above, must obtain express written permission from the author, or the submitter and from the listed county coordinator. Thanks again, one and all! Karen ASC Shirley SC Tim SC ------------------------------- To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to [email protected] with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes in the subject and the body of the message

Posting a copyright is NOT required, only adhering to the policy. My post said IF you post a copyright, this is what you should do. I like to copyright for the state project but some people do not mess with copyright and that is fine. Hope this makes it less confusing! Thanks Mike, Karen On Fri, Mar 20, 2015 at 12:37 AM, Mike (Dino) Peterson <[email protected]> wrote: > I find this subject terribly confusing and as evidenced by the discussions > of late on USGenWeb Discuss, I certainly am not alone. From our bylaws and > guidelines it is very clear to me that as a coordinator I must comply with > copyright laws/rules, as confusing as they are and as argumentative they’ve > been within the project. However, I cannot find anywhere in our bylaws/rules > that states I have to ‘post’ a copyright statement on my website. If that > were true, I would think USGenWeb or the State would have a required > ‘statement’ that would be consistent across the project. As it is, when a > statement is posted on a website it’s a statement that reflects the > interpretation of the coordinator. If I am missing this requirement for > posting, I would certainly like to be directed to it. I think Karen’s note > is an excellent note and the best description I’ve seen as a guideline. I > just don’t find where a posting is a requirement. > Sincerely, > Mike > > > From: Karen De Groote via > Sent: Thursday, March 19, 2015 6:09 PM > To: List MNGenWeb > Subject: [MNGEN] USGenWeb Requirement #3-Copyright > > As promised, the separate message on copyright. > > 3. You are required to adhere to the USGenWeb copyright policy. IF > your index page contains a copyright statement it must be a current > copyright so if the year is 2015, your INDEX page needs to say 2015. > > A copyright is as simple as, ie: " © Karen De Groote and Individual > submitters, 2015" The USGenWeb Bylaws, section X, deals with > copyright of our pages and you should be familiar with this section. > http://www.usgenweb.org/volunteers/bylaws.shtml. > > If you want to read more about copyright you can visit this page: > http://www.usgenweb.org/volunteers/copyright.shtml. > > Your other pages do not need to carry a current copyright. If you > made them and posted copyright at the time they were made, you can > leave them be. Current copyright on the index page provides coverage > for all of your pages. > > It would be far better to remove a copyright statement rather than > leave an out of date one on your index page. You want visitors to > know you are there and current. > > If you want to use a good copyright, you are all welcome to use the > one I use on my counties and edit it for your own counties. Having a > copyright on your page makes protection of your work so much easier. > Many major servers respect copyrights and if someone takes your web > pages and posts them as theirs on a server, that server will shut them > down immediately. I know this happened with GoDaddy recently and have > heard other big companies will respect a posted copyright. > > My copyright is worded as this, in small font, at the bottom of my > index page. You may use it on your page as long as you change the > county name: > > Copyright © MNGenWeb 2015 > MNGenWeb Stearns County: In keeping with our policy of providing free > information on the internet, data may be used by non-commercial > researchers, as long as this message remains on all copied material. > These electronic pages may not be reproduced in any format for profit, > nor for presentation in any form by any other organization or > individual. Persons or organizations desiring to use this material for > purposes other than as stated above, must obtain express written > permission from the author, or the submitter and from the listed > county coordinator. > > Thanks again, one and all! > > Karen > ASC > > Shirley > SC > > Tim > SC > > > ------------------------------- > To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to > [email protected] with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes in > the subject and the body of the message