APG-L Archives

From: "mavrogeorge" <>
Subject: RE: [APG] Question?
Date: Sat, 22 Jan 2000 12:38:33 -0800

As you explain it, you are performing "work for hire" and as
such the work product belongs in its entirety to the person
who paid for your work. In some instances, depending on the
contract, the materials you used also may belong to the
person who paid for your work (e.g. drafts, preliminary
work, etc.)

Unless in your agreement you specifically reserved rights to
the material or included some type of royalty/ownership
wording, my opinion is that you do not have any residual
rights to the product you produced.

This is actually a subject of much concern in the publishing
world due to a recent Supreme Court decision (the Tasini
decision) which held that original works may not be
published in another form without the approval of the
original producer.

Consider a publication (magazine, quarterly, book) that
consists of submission by various authors who were paid for
the article. The Supreme Court decision held that no one can
then take that publication and create an electronic version
of it without the approval of the original authors unless
the contract between the publication and the author
including granting the authrotiy to publish in another form.

What is not quite clear is what constitutes "publishing in
another form" - if all the issues of a magazine or quarterly
are microfilmed that does not constitute republishing in
another form. That is simply an archive copy of an existing
publication, and has been done for years. If the actual
images of the publication are on CDROM rather than microfilm
it probably is not republishing. If the CDROM contains a new
index to the material it may or may not be considered
republication. If the CDROM contains supplemental material
not included in the original publication then the CDROM
taken as a whole does consitute publication in another form.
If the CDROM doesn't use the actual images of the pages in
the publication but takes the content and reformats it then
that absolutely is considered republication.

A good example of why your contracts with your clients are
very important. And why we have lots of attorneys here
<grin>.

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Jeff Simonson [mailto:]
> Sent: Saturday, January 22, 2000 10:27 AM
> To:
> Subject: [APG] Question?
>
>
> Hi all,
>
> Greetings from 40 degrees below wind chill factor
> Boston! BBrrrrrrrr. I
> have a question, I recently contracted with a new
> client and was asked the
> following:
>
> >I have a question: Do you place any restrictions
> on what I can do with the
> >results of your research? At present, my plans
> are to provide my relatives
> >with a family tree stored on a CD-ROM. I do not
> have plans for publishing
> >any other way at present, but things are
> changing very fast and I don't want
> >to be prevented from exploring other ways of
> sharing this information.
>
> I obviously told the client that since he's
> paying me, any documention I
> find belongs to him to do whatever he pleases, as
> long as he uses my or his
> own citations and sources. After I answered him
> though, I started thinking
> more about his question.
>
> I'm curious, especially in light of his point
> about rapid and constant
> changing technologies, as to how others would
> have answered this question?
>
> Thanks!
> --------------------------------------------------
> ----------
> Jeff Simonson
>
> Massachusetts Genealogical & Investigative
> Research Services
> Boston, Massachusetts USA
>
> URL: http://www.mass-doc.com
> E-mail:
> Voice: 617.249.0323
> Fax: 617.249.0325
>
>
> ==== APG Mailing List ====
> The Association of Professional Genealogists
> ************* 1979 to 1999 *****************
> Celebrating 20 years of excellence!
>

This thread:

• [APG] Question? by Jeff Simonson <>

  • RE: [APG] Question? by "mavrogeorge" <>