Copyright and Terms of use between FamilySearch and other on line services.
over many months - I have occasionally seen comments that seem to allude to the belief that an image downloaded from another site (like Ancestry) - like a census image, or an image from some other database that Ancestry provides - is somehow under copyright by Ancestry - or maybe falls under certain "terms of use" limitations.
Do any of you know of any specific "terms of use" on Ancestry (or similar sites) that would prevent someone from downloading an image from a provided database (such as a census image database) and reposting it here on FamilySearch?
(I am not referring to "user submitted content" - which might fall under copyright by the person who submitted it - I am referring to vendor provided database images.
I realize there may be some very specific isolated scenarios - but I am interested in what is the most common / general case.
I would think US census records would be in the public domain, for example. Though it is still possible that Ancestry "terms of use" could limit certain type of use. BUT I get the impression that if Ancestry is letting you download it . . . that in general they probably consider it in the public domain and dont care what you do with it.
any specific cases where we are in violation of copyright or terms of use by posting an item that was downloadable from Ancestry? (again outside of user submitted content that indeed might have copyright)
anyone know of any Ancestry terms of use page that clarifies any of this. (for items they provide from their own databases - that they LET YOU download. )
Answers
-
feedback from Ancestry.com support says that if they have an option to download/save an item from their databases that in general that means you can do what you want with the item (they don't claim copyright)
again not referring to user uploaded content, but things like census images and the like.
BUT even a very large portion of user content is technically in the public domain.
As an example - If you have some old family photo and you scan it - that in no way makes you a copyright holder of the scan. whoever took the original photo is the copyright holder and if that was pre 1923 in most cases it is in the public domain.
0