Policy and Issue Statement

The following is used with permission of the
Edenfield Genealogical Society.
http://edenfield.org james@edenfield.org

Internet Issue:

Publication of genealogical material on the Internet is no different than publication of the same material in books. Books that are copyrighted can be obtained from the Copyright office or Library of Congress.

Copyright Issue:

Genealogical data, (Dates of birth and death, Place of birth, Place of death or burial, marriages, etc.), is public information which is easily obtained from census, newspapers and public records. As such, the data itself is not copyrightable. When you copyright genealogical books, the only protection you receive is that the book itself in its entirety or in part can not be reproduce. Basically, your form and presentation is protected. The actual data is not protected because no one or any organization can have exclusive proprietary rights to families lineages and history. If the data was protected then nobody could use a single word in the English language in writing because all the words in the English language was copyrighted by the publishers of the Webster's dictionaries.

Permission Issue:

Permission from individuals is not required for public information. When you copyright a genealogical book the copyright office does not require a permission form from each and every individual in the book.

Privacy Issue:

Genealogical data, (Dates of birth and death, Place of birth, Place of death or burial, marriages, etc), is public information which is easily obtained from census, newspapers, and public records. Marriage announcements, birth announcements, obituaries are all published by newspapers. Marriages are recorded at the local courthouses. Genealogical data that is copyrighted by individuals or organizations becomes public information by the very fact that it is copyrighted and a copy of the data can be obtained from the Copyright Office under the Freedom of Information Act. The fact that a census is not released to the public until 70 years after the census is misleading.

If you have questions about this WEB page, please let us know.
Email: krauss@iname.com This page last changed December 06, 2001