DEVON-L Archives

Archiver > DEVON > 1998-09 > 0904904032


From: Brian Randell <>
Subject: Re: Devon Records for sale?
Date: Fri, 4 Sep 1998 11:13:52 +0100


Hi David:

>Hi Susan and list I am happy to scan and post back pages of Devon FHS
>latest mag. which has their list of publications for sale as long as someone
>tells me I am not infringing any copyright or whatever! David

I have little doubt that it would be a copyright infringement if you posted
them to the list, as opposed to just emailing them to an individual.

However the legal question of copyright is not the whole issue. I and
others are trying to persuade various family history societies to become
more proactive in using the internet. We are having some success - 82 of
the 116 societies that are members (relating to regions of the UK &
Ireland) of the Federation of FHSs or the Scottish Association of FHSs now
have web sites, and some are very well-developed, with full publication
lists, journal contents, credit card payment facilities, etc.

There are people trying to persuade the Devon FHS to take more advantage of
the Internet. The Devon FHS pages on the net are ones that I obtained
permission to put up for them some years ago, but I have received no
updates for them since.

Societies are rightly worried about their financial situation might be
affected if their publication sales drop off - though there are a number
who can now point to distinct increases in membership due to the existence
of their Web sites and services to Internet users.

I fear that what you propose to do might be regarded unfavourably by the
DFHS, irrational though you and I might think that attitude to be - with
unfortunate effect on the efforts to persuade them to utilise the net.
Perhaps someone else on this list who is closer to the thinking of the
Devon FHS committee might care to comment.

Cheers

Brian Randell

Dept. of Computing Science, University of Newcastle, Newcastle upon Tyne,
NE1 7RU, UK
EMAIL = PHONE = +44 191 222 7923
FAX = +44 191 222 8232 URL = http://www.cs.ncl.ac.uk/~brian.randel

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