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Archiver > APG > 2009-04 > 1239312008


From: "Fredric Z. Saunders" <>
Subject: Re: [APG] Client Report Copyright Ownership on Expert Connect
Date: Thu, 9 Apr 2009 15:20:08 -0600
References: <49DDFD12.30804@debbiewayne.com> <4F18AF72B3174142A21DDBD600B4FD59@VistaHome1><A4615D165E93480DBFEF951A54FC0195@acer511eba12df><49DE4C4D.9050600@debbiewayne.com>
In-Reply-To: <49DE4C4D.9050600@debbiewayne.com>


LBoswell wrote on 4/9/2009 11:12 AM:
> ... How could you exercise your copyright
> rights without contradicting the privacy issues concerning the material
that
> you collected to meet the requirements set out between you and your
client?
> .......Ethically
>you don't have the right to use the information in any manner,
>without their express permission.

Very simply, when the family reported on happens to be my own ancestry also,
I have every right to use the information (and probably previously have)
without the client's "permission." It happens more often than you might
think. I do research mainly in a number of southern states, and it happens
about once a year that I'll find a client's ancestry connects with my own.
They'll hire me to do research in say TN on a family, and as I gather
information, I'll find that the grandmother or great-grandmother of what
they knew as their earliest ancestor connects back to my ancestry in say NC,
or VA or MD.

In the cases of some distinctive surnames descended from one person in the
1600s, it may take additional research and adding more generations before a
point is reached that it connects with my information/ancestry. Usually at
the point I find such a connection, it is just briefly mentioned in the
report, and I share [at no charge] "off-report" the information on our
common ancestry the same as I would with anyone that contacts me about those
lines. So, technically, the information I feel I have the right to share
isn't in the report, other than being briefly mentioned.

They may, though, receive information "with" the report that I have written
of documented narratives about those common ancestors that I do consider
"copyright." Not that I expect to gain anything financially or mind them
sharing those narratives, I just hope to keep my name connected as the
author of them, especially when the research and writing involved to produce
them was hundreds of hours. In those cases it is the "client" [now cousin]
that has the ethical responsibility to ask me for "permission" in sharing
that information.

Rick Saunders

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