Copyright and the lost letters
The abandoned property dilemma A reader bought a box at a local flea market and was enchanted to find that it contained letters — more than 100 letters — written during World War II by a Seabee to his girlfriend. The Seabee made it home safely after the...Dust Bowl images we can use
More copyright-free images Like many with an abiding interest in history, The Legal Genealogist has been riveted by the new Ken Burns documentary, The Dust Bowl, which is showing in two two-hour episodes on Public Broadcasting System stations around the country. If...Copyright and the website
Website copyrights A reader, M, is puzzled by the notion of copyrighting a website. “I have seen personal genealogy websites that say copyright (c) 2012 etc.,” M notes. “My question is how does a website get to be copyrighted and what does the copyright protect?”...Photos and the family homestead
More on photography for genealogy A question from reader Amber Tauscher reached the desk of The Legal Genealogist just about the same time as yesterday’s reader question about photography in cemeteries. But Amber’s question is a bit broader. “I have a...A calculated risk
The copyrighted(?) image So reader Sharon Meeker took one look at the blog yesterday and came away puzzled. “You’ve done a number of articles on copyright and use lately,” she said. “Could you explain how you can use the “get out of jail free image?”...Go ahead: use these images
Free-to-use images With all the issues that can crop up with photographs that may or may not still be under copyright, and with terms of use on websites that have images we want to use and aren’t sure that it won’t be a breach of contract if we do,...Copyright and the post-1963 obit
The rest of the story So, yesterday The Legal Genealogist reviewed the basic rules on copyrights for obituaries published in American newspapers from the time in which the memory of man runneth not to the contrary up until the end of 1963. And that prompted one...Copyright and the obit
A society’s transcriptions raise questions Reader Steve Dahlstrom was surprised when he ran across a website run by a local historical society that had transcriptions of a large number of obituaries from a local newspaper. The dates on the obituaries ranged, but...The courts and the orphan works
Digitizing the orphans Sometime later this year or early next year, in two different courtrooms in the Federal Courthouse in Manhattan in New York, two cases will be decided that could greatly affect how easily and how readily researchers, including genealogists, can...Subscribe by Email
