Where can I report an error to FS product or engineering with a 'protected' status digital item?
A 1926 book that I initially found on FS, have added as a source to my ancestors, and have viewed on FS on multiple occasions has now become 'protected status' with the error message being: "Image access is typically determined by local laws or the custodian who has the original document."
The document is a book that is housed at the Family Search library: (Wiener genealogisches Taschenbuch, v.1 1926) https://www.familysearch.org/en/search/catalog/34132
To test whether this is an issue with the IP address of the country I am currently located in (Greece), I used a VPN to USA. Same protected message and inability to view. I changed the VPN to Austria, same message. Thus, the issue isn't with being located in the USA or EU.
The book is 100 years old (1926 publication date); Austria's copyright laws are for 100 years of publication. This condition is met by the current year (not to mention, I viewed it in 2024, 2025).
Austria's copyright law also holds for 70 years after the author's death. In this case, the author died in 1949. This condition is met. https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hans_von_Stratowa
As far as I can tell, this book is out of print and the publisher has been dead 70+ years. It should not be a protected book.
Thus, I believe a permissions error has happened - whether in a batch update or a manual update, someone has changed this book from unprotected to protected, it would be nice to have a form to submit to product or eng teams to review possible errors such as this one.
Thank you
Answers
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In this case, the issue is more likely the dates of the records on the entire DGS since it covers through 1937.
@SerraNola Could you please confirm? Thanks.
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I suspect @Áine.ní.Donnghaile is right with her explanation but I'd just throw in a couple of further aspects that illustrate how difficult it is to assess whether something should be out of copyright or not.
- Copyright rules differ across the globe - I am certain I once read of stuff that was in copyright in one country but out of copyright in another. That possibility alone makes my head spin.
- I don't doubt that @CookieDogg is right about when the author died - but the FS team will have a massive job on their hands if they have to check up that for every single author.
- It's not even clear to me that the book in question was published in 1926 - I would have assumed that the 1926 referred to the data in the book and so publication would have been after 1926.
I'm not decrying the request - I'm just pointing out that things can be a lot messier than we hope for. And certainly the idea of a review mechanism ought to be considered…
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@CookieDogg I do not know if anything has changed in regards to contractual agreement for publishing this film; but I suspect the restriction may have been triggered by the metadata date now showing as 1987, which is the date it was microfilmed. I have sent in the correction so now we wait to see if the next permissions update restores access. Check back in a couple of weeks.
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