Problem with Juab High School yearbook collection on familysearch.org
Recently, when I tried to access Juab High School's online yearbooks at familysearch.org, those for 1989 and after were suddenly not viewable because of "copyright restrictions." I believe this to be a mistake, because 1) the subject yearbooks are decades old; 2) I have viewed them before without restriction; and 3) other much more recent yearbooks for other schools BOTH ON YOUR WEBSITE and others, like ancestry.com and classmates.com are viewable up until just a few years ago. Would you have someone check into this and advise me what has caused this problem? What was previously available to view doesn't suddenly become restricted by copyright. It makes no sense.
Answers
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A change in access to yearbooks usually happens when the record custodian (often the school district or the original publisher) updates their copyright or access agreement. FamilySearch doesn’t own the rights to these yearbooks, so if the rights holder changes what they allow to be displayed, FamilySearch must follow those restrictions even if the images were previously viewable. Different websites have different agreements, which is why the same yearbooks may still appear on Ancestry or Classmates. I'm sorry for the inconvenience.
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Attention: @SerraNola
I have now contacted Juab High School--both the person who has custody of the school's yearbook collection and the office of the school's superintendent, Dr. Kody Hughes. They told me they have no idea why such restrictions are being placed on Juab's yearbook collection. They say the school imposed no such copyright restrictions. This was what I expected, and now the question is how to pierce the bureaucracy at familysearch to lift the restrictions. To me it is clear that this is an error made by someone at familysearch, and I request your help in correcting it. I will try to post this to the community platform, but this does not seem like an efficient or effective way to bring about change. I am not trying to be difficult or disagreeable, but I have already invested much time chasing this problem, and there seems to be no easy way to access those with any real ability to fix the problem. Posting information to community bulletin boards does not seem like a promising solution. Thank you, Dale G. Bailey
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I assure you that this platform is the best way to connect FamilySearch users with those who can address issues. Management and engineers don't have time to review or respond to all feedback, but they welcome discussions about problems raised by the Community.
As to your request concerning copyright restrictions—In October there were major policy changes in regards to privacy protection. While I am unsure of all the reasons, bureaucracy is not involved. FamilySearch remains committed to publishing records freely while prioritizing ethical responsibility.
Last week I submitted three patron proposals to be sent to Contract and Compliance for review of restrictions. I can check with Rights Management for their recommendation on this one.
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