COPYRIGHT-L Archives

Archiver > COPYRIGHT > 1997-07 > 0869429467


From: Brian Leverich <>
Subject: Re: Understanding
Date: Sun, 20 Jul 1997 13:11:07 -0700


-- Your message was: (from "Debra Boswell")

> There simply has to be a way to share info for personal use without
> worrying about someone stealing your work and the credit you deserve.
> What really scares me is how many people see nothing wrong with the
> taking. Does anyone have an answer, is there indeed a copyright law on
> the internet. Is there a way to put a block up to prevent the file from
> being downloaded? Can anything productive come from this?

------------------

There is a copyright law on the Internet, same as on paper and all
other media. And when you hear about the Internet creating novel
copyright problems, it isn't questions like can you copyright a
whole page or a graphic you drew pixel by pixel -- of course that's
protected by copyright.

The interesting issues involve things like Broderbund's search
engine, which returns not only the link but also what may be a
crucial bit of the content of the remote page. People couldn't do
things like that when the bulk of the copyright statutory and case
law evolved, so the issues here are less cut-and-dried.

However, even when copyright is clear the problem is that the law
only protects you if you're willing to assert your rights in court.
And it's just not worth the trouble for most genealogists.

RootsWeb is going to try for a partial technological fix to the
problem. You can hide data behind search engines, so users can find
any data they want but bad guys can't easily download the whole
file. We'll be setting things up so the USGenWeb Archives and other
folks who store data on RootsWeb can choose how they want their data
distributed: in individual records from a search engine or as whole
files or both.

We think that will be the best of all worlds: users will have
convenient access to all the data, and data providers will be able
to choose on a file-by-file basis how they want their material
distributed. Cheers, B.

--
Dr. Brian Leverich Co-moderator, soc.genealogy.methods/GENMTD-L
RootsWeb Genealogical Data Cooperative http://www.rootsweb.com/
P.O. Box 6798, Frazier Park, CA 93222-6798

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