(This article was originally published on line July 24, 2003)
I’ve taken my genealogy information off Ancestry.com and Genealogy.com. Did it today; just a little while ago.
Why?
Because I knew that there was information in the notes portion of my material that was the original expression of other people. That means I was infringing upon their copyrights.
There was no consideration of copyright issues when their info was put in my files. There was no pretense at having put it there under the principle of fair use. I didn’t have a clue about copyright when I did it.
With most of what I was infringing, there was also no source documentation, which, technically, meant that my work plagiarized the works of others.
Completely unintentional, I assure you.
I wasn’t trying to claim the work as my own.
But, that doesn’t really matter, because those who came and used the information from my material probably assumed that it was my information, and, if they were doing good source citation, cited me as the source if they used it.
So how did the information get into my material and why did I remove it from the internet? What’s the big deal, any way?
Continued at Copy Right, Copy Sense
Post from one of my abandoned blogs – North Farnham Freeholder – recovered from Internet Archive WayBackMachine 2/27/2011 – page
