*THE COPYRIGHT ISSUE

Some genealogists make the incorrect assertion that their work is their own and that the data they compile and place in their GEDCOM files is protected by copyright. But there are two crucial points here.

First, information gleaned from public records of any sort is NOT protected under copyright law when someone copies it down onto a standard genealogy chart or enters it into a database. Vital records are public records. Court records are public records. Facts gleaned from tombstone inscriptions are public records. A wealth of other sources can provide the researcher with facts that also are public records. Even your own birth date is a matter of public record and cannot be called "private"; it certainly cannot be copyrighted.

Second, copyright law does NOT protect the data content of anything published. Data can be acquired, compiled, justified, and cited. Copyright law protects the presentation of the material. Therefore, data "presented" in a standardized, common format that is generally accepted by the community is NOT copyrightable. This means that the GEDCOM file you extract from your database program, the pedigree chart you complete, and the family group sheets you fill in cannot be copyrighted.

If, on the other hand, you compile information about your family and decide to write and publish a book about them, your presentation of the material in a unique format could be copyrighted; (however,) the factual data about their dates of birth, marriage, death, and so on could NOT be copyrighted. In addition, U.S. copyright law allows you (and others) to quote small portions of text from others' copyrighted publications, so long as it meets the "fair use" standard, as defined at the Library of Congress' United States Copyright Office Web site at http://www.loc.gov/copyright/circs/circ1.html.

*Extracted from an article written by GEORGE G. MORGAN: "ALONG THOSE LINES . . ." entitled "False Markers in Genealogical Data". Published on-line in the Ancestry Daily News http://www.ancestry.com/dailynews 2 February 2001. All emphasis added to original.