Ancestry.com or GEDcom are not "Sources" of original documentation

LegacyUser

Bruce Thompson said: I've noticed that many people cite Ancestry.com or GEDCom as a source of data. Both of these are 'secondary' sources of original documentation, not the original source. GEDCom files are user-generated with no documentation. This makes for many duplicate Sources on the Person Pages. Perhaps "Sources" could be labeled "Original Documents or Sources" or something like that with instructions not to cite secondary sources.

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Brett said: Bruce

Firstly, "Welcome" to this "FamilySearch" ( "GetStaisfaction" ) 'Feedback' Forum.

Secondly, "Official 'FamilySearch' Representatives", do monitor; and, sometimes, participate in, this Forum.

Thirdly, I am just another User/Patron, just like yourself (and, happen to be a Member of the Church).

Many Users/Patrons who regularly participate in this Forum who have a great deal of knowledge and experience with "FamilySearch", like to assist/help other Users/Patrons like yourself.

Finally, personally, I would suggest, that ALL regular participants (both, Members of the Church; and, non-member, Users/Patrons, alike) in this Forum would wholeheartedly agree with you.

Brett

LegacyUser

JT said: But please, USUALLY when referring to almost any Ancestry.com web page as a source, it IS USUALLY actually referring to one of the many original-source documents indexed within Ancestry.com. In fact, Ancestry has many more original sources than in the many original-source collections that FamilySearch has.

The only time that a reference to an Ancestry.com site is NOT a legitimate original source, is if that page is actually someone's private / own tree collection they've put together. But I've never seen anyone refer to someone's Ancestry.com tree as if it was a source.

LegacyUser

Brett said: Jon

I agree that there are certainly there ARE countless legitimate Records in "Ancestry.com" that are "Sources", that are NOT in "FamilySearch" (or, for that matter, anywhere else), which can be attached to individuals/persons in "Family Tree"; as, a User/Patron "Created" (ie. User Defined) "Source" - no dispute there.

You indicate that you have never seen [in "Family Tree", I presume] anyone refer to someone's 'Tree' in "Ancestry.com" as a "Source" - well, I have; and, not only that, I have seen countless times in the various personal 'Trees' in "Ancestry.com" under "Sources" for an individual/person; as, "Ancestry Family Trees", where when you select that "Source", you get an option to "View individual member(s) tree(s)" - many of which are NOT "sourced" and "undocumented".

The post here has nothing to do with "Ancestry.com" not having legitimate "Sources", that can be attached to individuals/persons in "Family Tree", rather that many Users/Patrons create a (ie. User Defined) "Source" that, in many cases, just say "Ancestry.com Family Trees" - NOT an actual "Source" Record.

And, of course, lets not get into the "Dreaded" GEDCCOM File situation - FIASCO. That has been done to death (please excuse the pun) in this Forum; and, yet, "FamilySearch" will NOT "Stop" the ability to up-load GEDCOM Files into "Family Tree" - fine no problems/issues with the up-load of GEDCOM Files into the "Genealogies" part of "FamilySearch"; but. please, NOT into "Family Tree" itself.

But, perhaps, that is just me.

Just my thoughts.

Brett

LegacyUser

Brett said: Jon

I agree that there are certainly there ARE countless legitimate Records in "Ancestry.com" that are "Sources", that are NOT in "FamilySearch" (or, for that matter, anywhere else), which can be attached to individuals/persons in "Family Tree"; as, a User/Patron "Created" (ie. User Defined) "Source" - no dispute there.

You indicate that you have never seen [in "Family Tree", I presume] anyone refer to someone's 'Tree' in "Ancestry.com" as a "Source" - well, I have; and, not only that, I have seen countless times in the various personal 'Trees' in "Ancestry.com" under "Sources" for an individual/person; as, "Ancestry Family Trees", where when you select that "Source", you get an option to "View individual member(s) tree(s)" - many of which are NOT "sourced" and "undocumented".

The post here has nothing to do with "Ancestry.com" not having legitimate "Sources", that can be attached to individuals/persons in "Family Tree", rather that many Users/Patrons create a (ie. User Defined) "Source" that, in many cases, just say "Ancestry.com Family Trees" - NOT an actual "Source" Record.

And, of course, lets not get into the "Dreaded" GEDCCOM File situation - FIASCO. That has been done to death (please excuse the pun) in this Forum; and, yet, "FamilySearch" will NOT "Stop" the ability to up-load GEDCOM Files into "Family Tree" - fine no problems/issues with the up-load of GEDCOM Files into the "Genealogies" part of "FamilySearch"; but. please, NOT into "Family Tree" itself.

But, perhaps, that is just me.

Just my thoughts.

Brett

LegacyUser

Tom Huber said: If I see recent additions of GEDCOM and/or "Ancestry" as a source to my relatives, I will send a message to the person explaining that "Genealogy without documentation is mythology," citing the (American) National Genealogical Society. I then explain that they need to provide the actual source and not an unsourced history or tree.

Far too many Ancestry trees have no sources, but repeat only what other's have found. As such, those kinds of sources are essentially worthless.

When it comes to an Ancestry source, then the details for that source need to be provided, such as the annual census enumerations in Kansas, which Ancestry has available through their site. These are from films by the Kansas Historical Society and the film series and roll need to be cited. There is no need to even mention ancestry, since they are only the index provider.

For instance, I have been using Directories from the Ancestry site. This one involved a number of my relatives:

Here is the "Record":

And here is the page from the directory:


Now, because the directory was published in 1925 for the 1924 year, I could place an image in memories as well as citing the actual published directory information.

But because I could just as easily have gotten a copy of the page at a library, I do not mention ancestry as the source, only the directory title: Alton City Directory, 1924, Alton, Madison County, Illinois.

LegacyUser

Bruce Thompson said: New to this forum, thanks for the welcome and responses. Of course, Ancestry.com has original sources, but often the source is simply listed as Ancestry.com. if I click on that source link, Ancestry will not allow me to see it because I haven't forked over the $$. Therefore, it is useless to me, as a FS user, as a source. FS has many of the same original docs as A.C, why not simply list those instead? Its not a huge deal for me, but inconvenient. The principle of original sources seems so simple.

LegacyUser

David Newton said: Just because you have to pay to see it does not make it an invalid source reference. The same is true of purely archival source references where the document has to pulled out of the stacks in a physical archive to view it. Both involve effort and expense to view the document. Provided that the source reference gives enough information to find the document and that the document is relevant to the profile it is attached to then all is well.

The Ancestry Family Tree "source" nonsense that has also been referred to in this thread is a genuine problem however. People need to realise that an Ancestry family tree, just as much as a GEDCOM file is simply a particular information storage format. Citing an information storage format as a historical "source" is plain ridiculous.

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Juli said: The problem with many Ancestry source citations is that they're incomplete: often, they consist of the paywall link and nothing else, meaning that a non-subscriber like me can't find out anything about the source beyond the fact that it's something on Ancestry. That something could be a valid source, such as a church register, or it could be a useless reference to someone's Ancestry tree; based on the citation alone, there's seldom any way to tell the difference.

Unfortunately, Ancestry does nothing to help people construct more useful citations; after all, it is to their advantage to cause more people to fork over a subscription fee.

Of course, the problem of incomplete citations isn't unique to pay sites like Ancestry. The auto-generated citations that FS itself provides are generally useless, with all sorts of text about where and when the filming took place, but nothing about which image on which film, or even what denomination in what specific place we're talking about.

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Bruce Thompson said: Well said, Juli.

LegacyUser

Brett said: Juli

'Yes'; but, even though the true Record "Sources" in "Ancestry.com" that are attached (whether or not they are User Defined) to individuals/persons in "Family Tree" cannot be viewed/accessed by ALL (ie. those without a 'Subscription'), that DOES NOT make them less valuable "Sources".

The same can be said for any Record "Sources" attached (whether or not they are User Defined) to individuals/persons in "Family Tree" from many other INTERNET Web sites (eg. BUT, not limited to:"FindMyPast.co.uk"; or, "MyHeritage.com"; or, the like).

I have found, at "Family History Centres", Record "Sources" from the aforementioned and many other INTERNET Web sites; and, either, attached them directly from that site; or, created a User Defined "Source" and attach them, many of these attached "Sources" I DO NOT have access to at Home; and, I can only access them at a "Family History Centre'; despite that, it DOES NOT make them less valuable "Sources".

Whereas, the way I originally took the premise of this post was in reference to Users/Patrons creating and attaching User Defined "Sources" that just stipulate (ie. just say), in many cases, "Ancestry.com Family Trees"; and/or, "GEDCOM Data/File; or, the like - And, NOT an actual "Source" Record.

Brett

LegacyUser

Brett said: Juli

'Yes'; but, even though the true Record "Sources" in "Ancestry.com" that are attached (whether or not they are User Defined) to individuals/persons in "Family Tree" cannot be viewed/accessed by ALL (ie. those without a 'Subscription'), that DOES NOT make them less valuable "Sources".

The same can be said for any Record "Sources" attached (whether or not they are User Defined) to individuals/persons in "Family Tree" from many other INTERNET Web sites (eg. BUT, not limited to:"FindMyPast.co.uk"; or, "MyHeritage.com"; or, the like).

I have found, at "Family History Centres", Record "Sources" from the aforementioned and many other INTERNET Web sites; and, either, attached them directly from that site; or, created a User Defined "Source" and attach them, many of these attached "Sources" I DO NOT have access to at Home; and, I can only access them at a "Family History Centre'; despite that, it DOES NOT make them less valuable "Sources".

Whereas, the way I originally took the premise of this post was in reference to Users/Patrons creating and attaching User Defined "Sources" that just stipulate (ie. just say), in many cases, "Ancestry.com Family Trees"; and/or, "GEDCOM Data/File; or, the like - And, NOT an actual "Source" Record.

Brett

LegacyUser

Paul said: Juli and Brett both make good points. It is true many of these sources are pretty useless - e.g. a FreeREG URL iink will take you to a Home page, as will ancestry.com ones, if you don't have a subscription. However, many FamilySearch sources are not available to view from home (or even a FHC) if your account is subject to restricted viewing, as Brett shows.

I have added many sources whilst at a FHC, but have to wait until I am able to return there before I can access the images again. Likewise, if a LDS member adds sources to a person in whom I have an interest, I often cannot view these.

The problem covers a whole range of sources / URL links.

LegacyUser

David Newton said: Not true about FreeREG. They've added a permalink capability fairly recently. However that doesn't detract from the general thrust of the point.

LegacyUser

Adrian Bruce said: "FS has many of the same original docs as [Ancestry], why not simply list those instead?"
That's an important point and I will always try to use the FS source rather than its equivalent Ancestry / FindMyPast / whatever source. Sometimes, however, some of the Ancestry / FMP sources that you see are there because they were added before FS had the source - or it might be that FS only has an index where FMP (say) has the image of the actual record. That's not always easy to tell.

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Paul said: David

Thank you so much for passing on this information. Assumed this would apply to FreeCEN, too, so just added a source to an ancestor and, as expected / hoped, this provides a direct link via the URL to the actual page, instead of the FreeCEN Home page (as for the "old" version).

This is very useful to know, as I have found many census records in FreeCEN that I have not been able to locate in FamilySearch. With apologies to those users with no interest in records for English parishes, I must add that I'll find the direct link to the indexed parish records in FreeREG will likewise be of great help, especially for access from Family Tree "Sources" sections.

I've never made a habit of adding external links as sources in Family Tree, mainly because they often don't work, but guess that will change now. Hope they don't suddenly change the URLs and make the records inaccessible from FT (and elsewhere)!

LegacyUser

JT said: I finally just found an example of what an Ancestry source looks like, when it is actually just a useless link to someone's private Family Tree in Ancestry. Note that it DOES indicate a "Family Tree", and not an actual verifiable original-source citation.



So as I merge this person who only has this as one source, into the real person who has many good sources, I will not be bringing over this as a source.

LegacyUser

Brett said: Jon

'Yes', seen a few of those - go nowhere, do nothing, no good for anything (except to take a look at "Ancestry.com" to see if there is any good stuff there).

Brett

LegacyUser

Ryan Torchia said: Older topic, but still a current problem.

> "'Yes'; but, even though the true Record "Sources" in "Ancestry.com"
> that are attached (whether or not they are User Defined) to
> individuals/persons in "Family Tree" cannot be viewed/accessed by
>ALL (ie. those without a 'Subscription'), that DOES NOT make them
> less valuable "Sources".

Absolutely it does make them "less valuable". If there's no indication of what the record contains, then other editors can't verify that it has been (and still is) linked to the right person, or that all the information it includes has been accurately and comprehensively added. That happens even with internal FS sources, but at least we can check those and detach them when we catch the error. We can't even know which datapoint the source is supporting.

If we're talking about records from more than a hundred years ago, there's no reason a photo of the record shouldn't be directly attached here.

LegacyUser

Tom Huber said: Compiled trees, such as those in Ancestry (and elsewhere) should never be cited as a source. Instead, the actual source that was used to add that information to the Ancestry user's tee should be cited.

Ancestry, like FamilySearch, does not create genealogical sources.

The whole idea behind a source citation is so that someone, at a later date, can go to where the source is held, and examine it for themselves. In essence, having an image (either directly digitized or digitized from a microform (film or fiche) of the original page(s) can work in many cases, but in others, there may be additional information available in the same volume.

One of the things to keep in mind is that FamilySearch works with a number of partner sites (ancestry is only one of those sites), and in some cases that other site has provided FamilySearch with an index and/or the digitized images. As such, we may occasionally see a reference in the image viewer that the image (being viewed) is courtesy another site. That other site, if it is involved in collecting genealogical information, is not a source, but it, like FamilySearch and Ancestry is a repository.

However, a lot depends upon the source material. Census Records are held by some agency, be it the United States NARA, SSA, or a state agency. Those are the sources. Where possible, the agency's cataloging method should be used in the source citation. That isn't always possible, especially with FamilySearch-produced citations. Admittedly, they are getting better, but still have a long way to go, especially for the U.S. Census Enumerations. I have a lot of citations in my local database that provide the FamilySearch URL. Unfortunately, there isn't a lot I can do, except hope that one day, I can deduce a better citation from the available information.

LegacyUser

Adrian Bruce said: "If we're talking about records from more than a hundred years ago, there's no reason a photo of the record shouldn't be directly attached here."
If I understand what you suggest correctly then I'm sorry but there are definitely reasons why what you appear to be proposing is wrong.

1 Copyright - this does not lapse 100y after a record has been created. Bear in mind that the records come from around the world so lots of different copyright regimes apply.

2 The Terms and Conditions that we all signed up for when we subscribed to the sites in question generally prohibit such usage. Ts and Cs are extra to copyright rules.

I've little doubt that odd images from the other providers get into FS Family Tree but I've little doubt that if it started happening in bulk, then those companies would be very aggrieved that some people were no longer subscribing to their site but going to FS FT to see the stuff instead. Or that's what their lawyers would say.

LegacyUser

David Newton said: "If we're talking about records from more than a hundred years ago, there's no reason a photo of the record shouldn't be directly attached here."

Oh yes there. It's a little obstacle known as copyright. People very often recite the anything from before 1925 is out of copyright "rule", whilst unfortunately (for them) forgetting two key caveats to that rule.

Caveat one: before 1925 only refers to PUBLISHED works. Anything unpublished then and subsequently published may well still be in copyright. For works that are still unpublished it's life of the author plus 70 years or 120 years from creation. Unpublished poem written in 1875 by author born in 1860 and who died in 1951? Still in copyright.

Caveat two: this only refers to works in the UNITED STATES. It is only applicable inside US jurisdiction. Most copyright systems long ago disgarded the ridiculous US formalities and registration requirements. Most systems don't distinguish "works for hire" from other copyrighted works in term of protection. Take the UK for example. UK government documents are copyrighted for the shorter of 125 years from creation or 50 years from publishing. However there is the caveat that since perpetual copyright for unpublished works was only ended by the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, with the relevant provision commenced during 1989 and a transitional period of 50 years was made (copyright at the time being life of the author plus 50 years). That means nothing unpublished in the UK comes out of copyright until the end of 2039. Then there are the knotty little problems of publication right and database right to worry about.

Oh and don't try fair use as an arguement. You're breaking the FSFT terms of use by uploading a copyrighted work and fair use may well not apply anyway.

LegacyUser

Ryan Torchia said: I meant within the bounds of something like what's covered here: https://www.familytree.com/research/c...
http://www.pddoc.com/copyright/geneal...

Copyright date doesn't apply to facts, so maybe a photo would be pushing it, but including the factual details, or running the old document through OCR and posting that would not. The bottom line is for documenting fiver or six generations back, nobody should just toss in a link to a paywalled site and yell "sourced!"

Also, copyright in the US is not the date of publication. It's the date at which the work is fixed to a tangible medium (otherwise unpublished works wouldn't be covered by copyright, would they?) For unpublished works, the protection is 120 years, so "more than a hundred years ago" was ballpark. I should have said before the 20th century, but...eh.

And yes, I'm referring to US law about US records, which may be myopic, but is what I'm dealing with right now.

LegacyUser

David Newton said: Oh dear.

"All public records, such as birth-marriage-divorce-death, court documents, cemetery records and headstones are classified as factual information and not copyrighted."

WRONG. The facts are not copyrightable, but the public records have a particular layout which was designed and had creative input into that design. Therefore the layout is copyrightable. The fact that in the US such works are either not copyrightable due to other things or the government entity chooses not to claim a copyright does not alter the underlying fact that the layout of public records is copyrightable.

What is even worse is including headstones in this paragraph. Headstones are NOT public records. Headstones are copyrightable in the vast majority of cases. Type of stone to use for the headstone? Creative input. Colour of headstone? Creative input. Choice of family message on headstone? Creative input. Font used on headstone? Creative input. Colour of text on headstone? Creative input. Unless all headstones in a graveyard are exactly prescribed by the rules of said graveyard (such as in a Commonwealth War Graves Commission cemetery) then headstones are very much copyrightable.

"If data was located on a microfilm, courthouse archives, state or federal census, military files, or databases (Rootsweb, GenWeb, World Family Tree Project) are also not copyrightable."

WRONG. Whether the information is on microfilm has nothing to do with copyright (except that no new copyright exists in a mere slavish copy). Databases on Rootsweb, Genweb etc can very definitely be copyrightable.

That Familytree.com article is poorly written and as I've just shown has a significant amount of information that is just plain wrong. The second link is better however.

As for "... running the old document through OCR and posting that would not." Thus spake the person that understandeth not copyright. Is the old document copyrighted? If yes then running it through OCR is exactly the same as scanning a photo.

"The bottom line is for documenting fiver or six generations back, nobody should just toss in a link to a paywalled site and yell 'sourced'".

I'd agree with that. To quote myself from higher up the thread, "Just because you have to pay to see it does not make it an invalid source reference. The same is true of purely archival source references where the document has to pulled out of the stacks in a physical archive to view it. Both involve effort and expense to view the document. Provided that the source reference gives enough information to find the document and that the document is relevant to the profile it is attached to then all is well."

When I say "enough information to find the document" what I mean is a full reference to the original document, in an archive if appropriate. Linking to a website is absolutely not enough.

LegacyUser

Justin Masters said: I too have been annoyed at this (paywalled sources), and I do lot with Newspapers.com, and found out (after hundreds of referenced sources) that someone else complained they couldn't see the source, which I thought was always free if I clipped it and someone referenced it directly.

But NO! I haven't figured out the pattern yet, but my best suspicion is that newer newspapers are NOT accessible, even with a clipping link.

So, that leaves me with the addition burden of OCR'ing the text (newspapers.com has one built in, but always needs corrections), and copy/pasting or typing in the text as part of my source record attachment.

I do that as well in case a site goes down/disappears, and I still have the relevant info. (granted, someone can still delete the source from FamilySearch - I SURE WISH IT COULD BE SAVED IN A CHANGE LOG ENTRY!)

So that's my way of "sticking it to the man". heh.

LegacyUser

Justin Masters said: And I recall reading recently (and I'm going to mess this up) there was a period of time (up until about 1973?) where published works, if not renewed, fell out of copyright. And booksellers,etc didn't want that info publicized much, but it's the basis for some folks scanning those works for free access by others.

I hope David can clarify it.

LegacyUser

David Newton said: Simplest reply: it's complicated. It's a legacy of the US system of requiring registration for copyright protection for published works and also requiring a formal copyright notice for copyright to subsist running smack into the Berne Convention world of automatic existence of copyright upon fixing a creative work into tangible form by an author. As you can probably guess the US system lost, but we are still dealing with the fallout and transitional provisions of that loss. It will take most of another century for all of the kinks to work themselves out (and I'm not joking about that).

In the US the year you are thinking of it 1964. All works registered etc after that were automatically renewed by statute. There are entire tables and flowcharts dedicated to documenting US copyright for published works published after 1925. At least for now Congress is so deadlocked that it can't be bribed into passing another copyright extension law.

As mentioned above it must be stressed and stressed again: THIS ONLY APPLIES IN THE UNITED STATES. There is no such thing as "international copyright law". There is a very complicated series of treaties that are implemented through national copyright law which provide for a degree of uniformity and also for mutual recognition of copyright for works from different jurisdictions.

That doesn't even begin to bring in the case law like Feist v Rural or Fourth Estate Public Benefit Corp v Wall-Street.com.

LegacyUser

Ryan Torchia said: I interpret the pages as referring more to the content of the documents. There's some misuse of using 'not copyrighted' instead of 'not restricted by copyright', and people conflate 'fair use' and 'not under copyright' because as far as they're concerned, the question really only is 'can I use it'? And I'm mostly thinking about older records: wills, marriage licenses, etc. I'm not concerned with photos of people.

WRONG. The facts are not copyrightable, but the public records have a particular layout which was designed and had creative input into that design. Therefore the layout is copyrightable.

If you're talking about attaching a PDF of the entire book, maybe, but attaching a small excerpt of factual information to the relevant person page isn't going to have a problem passing the section 107 sniff test. (I'm not sure where you got the idea that Fair Use isn't sufficient here. It's not forbidden in the ToS or submission guidelines.) Bender v. West Publishing is probably applicable here: simply rearranging or sorting the facts isn't transformative enough to warrant fresh copyright protection.

As for "... running the old document through OCR and posting that would not." Thus spake the person that understandeth not copyright. Is the old document copyrighted? If yes then running it through OCR is exactly the same as scanning a photo.

OK, run a photo through a scanner and through OCR and let me know how similar the results are. (Did the snarky reply about your understanding of technology help here?) As you allude to, it would depend on which element of the work is under copyright protection. If somebody reprints the Gettysburg Address in a book over an illustration, publishing a photo of that may be a copyright violation; an OCR scan would not. Attaching a photo of an elaborate mausoleum wall might be a copyright violation (either the design or the photo itself, although personally I doubt it), but an OCR scan of the names and dates will not be.

In another reply you mentioned a couple cases, but both were resolved in ways that pointed against strict copyright protection. Some others I'd lump in are Worth v. Selchow & Righter, where the makers of Trivial Pursuit were completely nailed for copying Worth's book, but still won because the contents weren't copyrightable. (Fred was a family friend, which is why that case sticks in my mind.)

Do you have any decisions that would support the assertion that attaching an excerpt that includes factual information to the person it pertains to on a noncommercial site like this wouldn't be fair use?

LegacyUser

Tom Huber said: Copyright provisions and exceptions are very much associated with the country of origin. Public records, including the document itself, are in the public domain, But again, the actual law needs to be understood within the context of where the public records are made. Consider the following

Copyright law does not prohibit copying of public records. WASHINGTON–In mid-July, the state Court of Appeals in Tacoma ruled that federal copyright law does not prohibit the reproduction of public records in response to a request under the Public Records Act. -- Aug 12, 1996

The reference to Washington is the state of Washington and the date is not the date of the Public Records Act in that state.

The following applies to the United States of America:

Title 17, Section 105, United States Code, provides that: Copyright protection under this title is not available for any work of the United States Government, but the United States Government is not precluded from receiving and holding copyrights transferred to it by assignment, bequest, or otherwise.

The intent of the section is to place in the public domain all work of the United States Government, which is defined in 17 U.S.C. § 101 as work prepared by an officer or employee of the United States Government as part of the person's official duties.

By virtue of the foregoing, public documents can generally be reprinted without legal restriction. However, Government publications may contain copyrighted material which was used with permission of the copyright owner. Publication in a Government document does not authorize any use or appropriation of such copyright material without consent of the owner.

--https://www.govinfo.gov/about/policie...

Scanning and publishing a public document, such as a death certificate, is not protected by copyright.

Copying a photograph, such as those found on Find a Grave, if permission is not given in the photographer's bio, is prohibited by the copyright of the photographer. In all instances, crediting the original photographer is a matter of courtesy and should always be done.

Search for "are photographs automatically copyrighted". Also search for "copyright laws on old photos" -- which, in essence says

Virtually every original prints of historical photographs published before January 1923 is now in the public domain. This means that anyone possessing an original image from 1922 or before can copy, prepare derivative works, distribute, or display the photograph without needing to obtain permission.

Note that my results apply to my country (the United States of America).

It should be noted that the photographer owns the copyright, which is automatically created when the shutter is pressed. The copyright has nothing to do with the person(s) or objects in the resulting image, unless the material in the image is protected by copyright. In other words, taking a photograph of a projected motion picture is double protected from copying -- the motion picture and the person pressing the shutter. Note, the person taking the photograph would be in violation of U.S. Copyright law.

This is a very sticky and complex legal matter. If you have questions consult with a copyright attorney.

LegacyUser

David Newton said: If we turn to that other great English-language location of the UK then there has been considerable change over the last few years. The National Archives at Kew has been at the forefront of this change.

That change has not been about copyrightability or extent of copyright but has been about licensing of those copyrights. The Open Government Licence is the friend of the genealogist worldwide. What is also the friend of the genealogist is the treatment of Crown copyright that has expired in the UK. Crown copyright in published works expires 50 years after publication date and I have written evidence that if the copyright is expired in the UK it is regarded by them as expired worldwide. The head of TNA is also the Queen's Printer and controls licensing of all UK Crown copyrights.

http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/do...

https://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/i...

http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/do...

http://nationalarchives.gov.uk/docume...

That last one says, "You are free to transcribe, translate, index and quote from published or unpublished Crown copyright material among the records as extensively as you wish and you may publish the results in any medium: in accordance with the terms of the Open Government Licence."

However the terms of the Open Government Licence are NOT compatible with the Familysearch licence and that means that only transcriptions of facts are permissible on the site since as others have noted that is not copyrightable.

LegacyUser

Ryan Torchia said:

So bear in mind what I said about fair use being an affirmative defence to copyright infringement. Then look at the licence you grant Familysearch upon upload of the content. Then run that through the fair use test, from the perspective that it is not just one user uploading "fair use" materials from places but multiple users.

Do you have a case citation that establishes that doing something that is individually covered under Fair Use somehow suddenly ceases to become Fair Use because too many unaffiliated people exercised that right independently?

The rules essentially protect FamilySearch itself from accusations of volitional conduct. So some third party would have to prove that FS willingly caused wholesale copyright infringement. If it didn't happen in Perfect 10 v Giganews, it has no chance of happening here.

Looking beyond that, given the nature of what's being created here would certainly be covered as a transformative use of the source materials. Not a copyright violation.

Oh and on the subject of OCR, let's think what needs to happen before OCR can be performed? I know! An image of the document needs to be created using a camera or scanner!

Well, for one thing, that's not true. The process can be performed directly on the original without having to create an image in the interim. It's the automated equivalent of a person transcribing a document by reading it, unless you want to argue that the perception of the image inside your brain is a copyright violation.

But if you're talking about using a document that's been posted online, the image has already been created by the copyright holder. The person who transcribes the noncopyrightable factual information from the document still isn't creating the image. The fact that it's machines doing the transcription instead a human being is irrelevant.

And if you still want to argue merely scanning the document and making snippets available to the public infringes, check Authors Guild, Inc. v. HathiTrust, or Cartoon Network v. CSC, which found that buffering copyrighted material for later private use was not an infringement.