A Copyright Milestone: 1923 Publications enter the Public Domain

Copyright law in the United States (and elsewhere for that matter) is a swamp of uncertainty and confusion. But 2019 brings a milestone to U.S. Copyright Law: Books and other publications from 1923 are now in the public domain. This is the first time in 21 years that the copyright restrictions have retreated even one year. It would seem that there is one small glimmer of hope in the morass of arcane restrictions that constitute copyright law around the world. But don't get your hopes up too high, the U.S. Legislature could still pass additional restrictions retroactively.

Most of the attention in news about this milestone is directed at high visibility works such as publications by famous authors or poets, but by and large, the vast number of publications that do not have such notoriety will pass quietly into the public domain and start becoming available on websites such as Archive.org and Project Gutenberg. Here is a quote from the Project Gutenberg website about the expiration.

The Public Domain will grow again in 2019 

In the US, annual copyright term expiry is set to begin again in 2019, after a 20-year hiatus due to the Copyright Term Extension Act of 1998. On January 1, 2019, items published in 1923 will enter the public domain in the US. In the early days of Project Gutenberg, growth of the public domain on January 1 was an annual event. See Duke Law's "Public Domain Day"for a listing of many items that were scheduled to enter the public domain, but have yet to do so because of the 1998 extension. Some notable items scheduled to enter the public domain in 2019 include Felix Salten's "Bambi" and Kahlil Gibran's "The Prophet."

What does this mean to genealogists? It means that there are a huge number of books and other documents that can now be digitized and put online with impunity.

But, as with anything that deals with law in the United States or Internationally, there are caveats. You might want to read the following article entitled, "The myth of the pre-1923 public domain" published in the LibraryLaw Blog. But since genealogists should not be too worried about the copyright status of the Happy Birthday song or Mickey Mouse, unless Congress can free itself from its own swamp, there is little cause for worry or concern. But if the Congress does decide to tinker with the Copyright Law again, I will be one to write as much as possible opposing any further extensions. If you want to pursue this issue, there are plenty of articles online about the subject, just search for "1923 copyright."

GenSoftReviews Users Choice Awards for 2018

http://www.gensoftreviews.com/

For ten years, Louis Kessler's GenSoftReviews website has been naming the annual Users' Choice Awards. The insights that come from this compilation go way beyond mere numbers of users and overall popularity. They are, in fact, an accurate commentary on the entire genealogical community. One of the consistently astonishing facts is that so many of the programs that are highly rated by genealogists are actually long discontinued and unsupported. In addition, many of the programs are free or have free versions. First, an explanation from the official announcement which came to me as an email.

During 2018, there were 410 new reviews given to 83 of the programs listed at GenSoftReviews. Along with the review, users rated the programs from 1 to 5 star, with 5 being best.  Programs with at least one review in 2018, ten or more all-time reviews, and a cumulative user rating of at least 4.00 stars out of 5 receive a GenSoftReviews User Choice Award for 2018. The award is indicative that a program is well-liked by its users.

Here is a screenshot of the Award Winners for 2018:

http://www.gensoftreviews.com/awards.php

 And here is a list of the winners. I strongly suggest that you go to the website and read the descriptions of the programs.

1. iFamily for Mac - Rated 4.99 out of 5
2. Evidentia - Rated 4.99 out of 5
3. Famberry - Rated 4.95 out of 5
4. Family Historian - Rated 4.91 out of 5
5. The Next Generation - Rated 4.83 out of 5
6. Genealogie Online - Rated 4.77 out of 5
7. Ahnenblatt - Rated 4.73 out of 5
8. Personal Ancestral File (PAF) - Rated 4.72 out of 5
9. Generations - Rated 4.72 out of 5
10. Family Book Creator - Rated 4.71 out of 5
11. rootstrust - Rated 4.70 out of 5
12. Brother's Keeper - Rated 4.66 out of 5
13. webtrees - Rated 4.65 out of 5
14. Familienbande - Rated 4.61 out of 5
15. Relatively Yours - Rated 4.60 out of 5
16. Ancestral Quest - Rated 4.49 out of 5
17. Ancestris - Rated 4.47 out of 5
18. Family Tree Maker - Up To Version 16 - Rated 4.41 out of 5
19. MyHeritage - Rated 4.20 out of 5
20. Clooz - Rated 4.18 out of 5
21. RootsMagic - Rated 4.12 out of 5
22. oxy-gen - Rated 4.10 out of 5
23. Reunion - Rated 4.10 out of 5
24. Family Tree Builder - Rated 4.08 out of 5

You might notice that Ancestry.com, FamilySearch.org, and Findmypast.com are not on this list. The only major online website program that is on the list is MyHeritage.com and also the MyHeritage.com program Family Tree Builder. The following programs are no longer supported by the original developer and are discontinued.

• Personal Ancestral File
• Generations
• Family Tree Maker -- up to version 16
• Relatively Yours

Some of these programs simply will not die. I think the dead programs can be best summarized by this five star review of Personal Ancestral File from October 2018:

Have used PAF for years without issue. For whatever reason my program has left the building, but my files are still in place but unsupported. How can I get PAF back?
Biggest Pro: Excellent, understandable, flexible
Biggest Con: Gone?

Here is a longer five star review for Personal Ancestral File from 2018 that needs some additional commentary that I have added in brackets and bold type.

Wow, it’s been 5 years since it was discontinued? [The last version of PAF was issued in 2002] I’m still using it, simply because I like the simple interface. But my cousin said that Roots Magic allows her to use the SAME database, and she can go back and forth between her old PAF and the new Roots Magic. My husband wants to update his computer; the old one had Broderbund… Broderbund went out of business  and so we will get Roots Magic on his and try it out. [Brøderbund Software was a software company formed in 1980 to create educational titles. It created many successful gaming franchises such as Mavis Beacon Teaches Typing, Zoombinis, and Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego?. In 1997, it opened Red Orb, the subsidiary for publishing mature games. In 1998, Brøderbund became a wholly-owned subsidiary of The Learning Company, which itself was purchased by Mattel year after. After Mattel experienced financial difficulties, it sold Broderbund to Gores Technology Group, who turned the company into profit after only 75 days. Ubisoft purchased Brøderbund's Entertainment Division in March 2001, while Riverdeep Interactive acquired its Education Division in September that year. Then in August 2002, all of Brøderbund assets became part of Riverdeep. In the early 2000s, budget software publisher Encore, Inc. acquired the trademark of Broderbund; it currently publishes software titles from the company under said name. See Broderbund Software http://www.closinglogos.com/page/Broderbund+Software. The Broderbund genealogy software referred to was sold to The Learning Company in 1998 and then to Genealogy.com in 2000. The program was sold to MyFamily.com in 2002 and became Family Tree Maker then it was sold to Ancestry.com in 2008. Ancestry.com sold the genealogy program to MacKiev.com in 2017.]

As an old programming teacher and Office products instructor, I have spotted two programming errors which result in titles not being centered in the Ahnentafel and Descendency reports. Whatever. I can fix those myself. But it is apparent that is an error, because Preview shows it correctly, but when you “save” it during Print, it comes up wrong. [It is hard to guess what operating system these folks are using] 

The thing is, we all got PAF for free. Computer folks reading here will agree that the price for commercial software is VERY high per year. [I consistently hear this complaint and genealogy software is among the most underpriced software on the market. This person obviously does not use Adobe or Microsoft software] The LDS folks probably found that it was too expensive to maintain a knowledgeable programming staff. [The descendants of the program are still in existence as Ancestral Quest, a highly rated program that is only $29.95 and has a free version] 

Biggest Pro: Simple interface
Biggest Con: Slightly incorrectly formatted word processing output [The program has several other more serious defects and bugs depending on the operating system you are using]

So much for the entertainment section of this post. Nearly all of the reviews for current and actively supported programs are a valuable asset to the larger genealogical community. But it is still a sad commentary on genealogists that they think that spending a few dollars for a supported program is too expensive. By the way, three of the highly rated programs have free versions: MyHeritage's Family Tree Builder, RootsMagic, and Ancestral Quest.

Well, GenSoftReviews.com is an extremely valuable online resource. But it is sad that the genealogical community seems caught in a pre-2000 A.D. time warp when it comes to software.

Using the frequency of names for genealogical research

A common misconception among those with no genealogical background is that people with the same surname could be related. In some areas of the United States that could be true for me. If I run into someone with the Tanner name or Tanner ancestors in Utah or Arizona or some other Western United States of Southern Canada locations, there is a good chance we are related. But the key to using surnames as a finding aid is to match surnames to locations. Even very common names will show some geographic variations. But there is a way to take that process even further and find your ancestors by looking at the frequency of names in a specific geographic area regardless of the frequency of the name.

To start, you need to realize that your surname's spelling may have changed over time. It is not enough to say that you are likely related to someone who spells their name the same way as you do. Also, unique names are only unique if they are unique all over the world. For example, if your family came from Central Africa, you may have a very unusual surname in the United States, but your name may be common in your ancestral homeland. Next, it is absolutely important that you have a specific place to begin research. I mean "specific" in the sense that you have documented an exact location of an event in the life of an ancestor.

When you have researched and discovered a target area you can further refine surname searches with given names.

With a surname (and variations) and a specific location, you can begin searching using any one of the large online genealogical database programs. I will give an example from Findmypast.com because this website is the easiest and most accurate to use for this type of research, but technically, you could use any surname database that has entries that are tagged to locations. My ancestral example will illustrate the concept using a family from England. But this works almost everywhere in the world. It may not work well if you happen to have a huge number of people with the same surname in the same are who are not demonstrably related.

Once you begin this type of research, you may also find previously undiscovered relatives. This is a bonus for looking in a specific location.

Here we go. One of my ancestral families has the surname of Stapley (with some variations). The most recent ancestor in this line is Sarai Stapley.

According to a record from England Births and Christenings, 1538-1975 she was christened on 3 November 1805. Her birthdate comes from more recent records subsequent to her emigration to Australia and ultimate travel to the United States.

Now we can start with finding out how many Staply or Stapley family members lived in or around Rolvenden, Kent, England. First, where is Rolvenden and what are the surrounding villages and towns? Unless, the place no longer exists or the information is inaccurate, finding this information is as simple as looking on Google Maps. Here is Rolvenden in the middle of this screenshot from Google Maps.

Let's see how many Stapleys or Staplys there are in England and then in Kent and then in the area around Rolvenden.

I begin by searching all the records in England that have Stapley or its variations.

This search indicates that in all the records on Findmypast.com there are  472, 160 records for people who have the Stapley surname or its variants. From my experience, this number is in the low range, not at all unique, but not overly common.

Now we limit the number to the County of Kent and I may as well add in the time period involved, plus or minus 40 years.

That cuts the number of people down considerably but we still have a large number of people in this one county with the same surname. Now if we go to the location we should see a further reduction. We can also indicate a search radius in miles from the town. Now the number drops to a useful level.

I can work with the distances and add in names but now I have a basis for assuming that most, if not all of these Stapleys are related to me and to can use the information to expand on the entries in my own family tree. In fact, I immediately find a marriage record for Sarah Stapley and Samuel Bryant, her husband.

I also find record hints for more records.

As I indicated, this can be done with other websites, but not as completely or easily. If you keep this process in mind, you will find a considerable number of instances when it will be extremely useful.

Arizona State Archives: Wonderful Local Sources for Genealogical Research

https://azlibrary.gov/archives

This is an ongoing series of posts highlighting the resources of all 50 of our state archives in the United States. I am working through the states alphabetically but you are welcome to request that I jump ahead to your favorite. Just tell me what you would like to see in a comment.

Arizona's experience with document storage i.e. archives is probably similar to many of the states except for the time period involved. Here is a quote from a website that addresses the construction of the Polly Rosenbaum State Archives building, which currently houses the Arizona State Archives.

The Polly Rosenbaum State Archives and History Building preserves state documents, artifacts, and public records that require precise climate controlled storage as well as additional protections from biological, environmental and mechanical hazards. 

Prior to the Rosenbaum Archive’s completion in 2008, over 250,000 boxes of irreplaceable materials were being stored in various locations around the state, including in the attic of the Capitol Building. Worse, every month, a number of these relics of Arizona’s history were being destroyed due to a lack of space. 

Insect and rodent infestations in these areas were so severe that merely handling the papers would have posed a significant health risk. 

Because of the delicate nature involved in preserving these items, designers conducted extensive research to insure that the new facility would remain a cutting-edge sanctuary designed to protect the valuable historic assets. 

Expert consultants advised on every aspect of construction, from lab equipment to the individual building materials. All possible threats were considered, from fire, water, and other environmental dangers to theft and rodent infiltration and even terrorist activity.

Note the date of completion in 2008. The first European settlements in Arizona began in 1539. The city of Tucson was established in 1775. Hence, Arizona history goes back before the establishment of the Plymouth Colony in 1620 in what is now the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. In short, there was no organized area-wide document preservation effort in the State of Arizona for about 469 years. From a genealogical standpoint, this time lag indicates the difficulty researchers will have in locating and reviewing pertinent historical and genealogical records. It is also important to remember that Arizona became a state on February 14, 1912.

Of course, some records were being preserved during the entire history of the State but those records are scattered across the state and in other collections outside of the state. For example, the Arizona Historical Society has four major locations in Arizona and an extensive collection of documents.

https://arizonahistoricalsociety.org/research/library-archives/#locations-hours

The Arizona Historical Society was established by an Act of the First Territorial Legislature in 1864. Here are some quotes from the Arizona Historical Society website:

Established by an Act of the First Territorial Legislature on November 7, 1864, the Arizona Historical Society (AHS) is Arizona’s oldest historical agency. Architects of the Territory’s code of laws realized they were making history and that it was important to preserve a record of their activities. One of their earliest actions was to create the means for documenting the past and recording contemporary events as they unfolded. This became the Arizona Historical Society, formed to collect and preserve “all facts relating to the history of this Territory.” 

The Arizona Historical Society is proud to serve as the steward of Arizona’s history. Our collections, housed in AHS museum facilities throughout the state, number in excess of three million objects.  Our artifact and manuscript holdings offer unrivaled opportunities for public programming, educational outreach, and exhibitions, as well as academic and community-based research. AHS collections not only provide premier resources for recounting Arizona’s past, but are invaluable tools for promoting public understanding of contemporary issues such as water availability, immigration, free trade, mining, ranching and agribusiness, the defense industry, cultural diversity, and urban development and revitalization. The Arizona Historical Society — through its exhibits, programs, publications, and outreach — informs and inspires people of all ages by reminding them of the boldness and daring that characterized countless individuals, past and present, who have made Arizona their home.

Genealogists who are unfamiliar with the differences between state historical societies and the state archives should take note of the need to look for documents in multiple organizations. Arizona, like many other places in the United States, also has a number of local and county historical societies and organizations. For many years, the State of Arizona had a "Genealogy" library and reading room located in the State Capitol Building. Because of a lack of space, this collection was moved into storage. Ultimately, some of the items were digitized and ended up on FamilySearch.org but most of the collection was transferred to the new Arizona State Library, Archives and Public Records building. Here are some specific items in their collections that are valuable to genealogists.

Genealogical resources at the Arizona State Archives include but are not limited to:

• Assessment Rolls containing lists of taxable persons and their property.
• Brand Indexes and Books.
• Coroner or Justice Court records detail inquests held for violent or suspicious deaths
• Great Registers containing personal information required of those who registered to vote.
• Records from the Territorial Prison.
• Superior Court records including marriage licenses, wills, probate cases, and civil and criminal cases. 
• Historic Arizona newspapers
• Arizona Collection with more than 75,000 items 
• A Ready Reference collection of general books
• Online resources (for in-Library use): Ancestry

In addition, the Arizona State Library, Archives and Public Records has several online record collections and catalogs.

https://azlibrary.gov/collections

Arizona should be an example to genealogical researchers of the need to identify all of the important archival locations within a state. In my case, for example, I visited the local city museum of the tiny Arizona town where some of my ancestors lived and immediately saw a photograph of my Great-grandfather standing in front of his blacksmith shop. If you do a search by county in Arizona, you will find that every county has either a historical society, museum or some kind of library. By the way, there are only 15 counties in Arizona. Also, Maricopa County, Arizona has a larger population than the entire State of Utah.

Looking Forward to Another Fantastic Year from MyHeritage

If 2019 is anything like 2018, we can expect some more great developments from MyHeritage.com. The website ended up with more than 9.4 billion historical records and that was just the start. One of the many highlights of the year was the first annual MyHeritage LIVE Conference. 2018's Conference was held in Oslo, Norway. I was still working digitizing records at the Maryland State Archives and could not attend. But there is always 2019.

MyHeritage also kept up the pace by expanding its DNA testing. In this regard, MyHeritage recently had an important announcement. Here is what was announced:

If you’ve done a DNA test before on another service, uploading your DNA data to MyHeritage can help you break down genealogical brick walls and uncover new relatives. Genetic genealogists call this “fishing in another pond” for DNA Matches, to benefit from the opportunity to be matched with the huge base of customers who have tested their DNA exclusively on MyHeritage. As we announced previously, starting today, December 16, 2018, users can upload their raw DNA data from other testing services for free, and they will still receive all DNA Matches for free, but unlocking extra features for uploaded DNA data will cost an extra fee. 

If you have already uploaded your raw DNA data to MyHeritage from another testing service prior to December 16, 2018, you are grandfathered in and will continue to enjoy access to all of the extra DNA features for free.

Even though I have mentioned it before, if you want to begin to understand MyHeritage's direction and why they are driven to excellence, you should listen to the keynote address from the MyHeritage LIVE Conference given by Gilad Japhet. You can still watch the Keynote on Legacy Family Tree Webinars. Here is the link.  To get an overview of where MyHeritage is heading, see the following video.

Perspectives on Combining Genealogy and Genetics

Finding Genealogically Relevant Ebooks Online?

Among the millions and millions of online ebooks, there are a sizable number of books and other publications that are both specifically and generally valuable aids to genealogical research. As I have mentioned in past posts, one of the things I find most disturbing about working in libraries with large genealogical book collections is that the patrons seldom know about, search, or even look at the books. I have been asked questions by patrons that could be answered immediately by walking over and taking a book off the shelf.

Now, the same thing is happening with online research. Books are almost uniformly ignored. The FamilySearch.org website is a good example of this problem. Of course, the website has millions upon millions (billions) of digitized records and all of those records are searchable in the FamilySearch.org Catalog. However, those records include, at the time of the writing of this post, 372,477 digitized books. Here is the issue: none of those books show up in the Historical Record Collections searches. The only way to access the information in the books is through a search directly in the "Books" section of the website. Granted, currently, there is a notice posted on the FamilySearch.org Books section that says that there will be a new interface and enhanced features in January 2019, but for years these books have been vastly underused. Interestingly, the books that are available are searchable word by word.

Let me give you all an example of how this works (or doesn't work).

I have a book about one of my family lines with the following citation:

Overson, Margaret Godfrey Jarvis. George Jarvis and Joseph George De Friez Genealogy. [Mesa?, Ariz.]: [M.G. Jarvis Overson], 1957.

Now, the first challenge is learning about the existence of such a book. This book has photos, stories, and genealogical information for thousands of individuals and families. Albeit, some of the information is not completely accurate or complete, but the book is a marvelous starting point for anyone investigating all these two families' ancestors and descendants. Now, how would I find this book if I did not already have a physical copy given to me by my father? I also have the copyright to this book and I had the book digitized and included in the FamilySearch.org Books Collection.

That is the real question about doing online genealogical research. But there is a larger question: how many more books are there that have information about these families? First off, I have to realize that such a book could exist. Next, I need to know how to go about using library catalogs to find books (I am going to use the term books to include all sorts of published material including serials and manuscripts). There are a lot of entry points on the internet to start such a search. Since I have already mentioned the FamilySearch.org website, let's do a search in the Books section.

What if you don't know how to use the FamilySearch.org catalog or other resources? Then you need to learn. The best available learning tool is The Family History Guide. Here is the section of that website that talks about searching for information in books on FamilySearch.org.

https://thefhguide.com/project-4-discover04.html

If you are not familiar with library catalogs and have spent little or no time in a library, then you are definitely library challenged and need to remediate before proceeding further. I suggest going to your local public library or university library and start asking questions. In almost all cases, the library staff and reference librarians will gladly teach you what you need to know.

Now to FamilySearch.org. If I go to the Books section, I will see that there is a search function.

https://books.familysearch.org/primo_library/libweb/action/search.do?vid=FHD_PUBLIC&backFromPreferences=true

It may be obvious, or not, but just search for a surname of a family you are interested in researching. I will search for Jarvis and this is what I get:

Hmm. I get 15,290 responses for books and records that mention or have information about the Jarvis family. Good Luck? Maybe. It depends on whether or not you know how to look for a more specific entry. I can't really explain that process, it is something you have to learn by doing thousands of searches. But I would first change my search to look for George Jarvis. Here are the new results.

Not much more help but there is one interesting entry the fourth one down on the search results.

I am already on the path to finding my own family information. How do I know this? Well, I am doing this research in conjunction with a lot of other research and I have previously identified some of the family names. Now I can use this information to be more specific:

Guess what? My book is the second one listed. Could I have found a copy of the book some other way? Obviously yes. I could have started my search using WorldCat.org. WorldCat.org is the largest online catalog of books and other materials from thousands of libraries around the world. Here is my search in WorldCat.org. Since I now know the name of the book I can use the name of the book as a search term or at least include the surname of the author.

There are two entries for the same book. If I click on an entry, WorldCat.org will show me a list of libraries that have copies of the book and may also show whether or not an ebook is available. I may have to click on each of the entries because the book was cataloged by more than one library.

Because I have entered my Zip code, I see a list of libraries organized by their proximity to me. I can also view all the editions and formats of the book.

Well, now I have more information than I can possibly handle at this point and I need to actually find the book and read it and incorporate the information into my own research. By the way, WorldCat.org has a direct link to the ebook on the FamilySearch.org website. See if you can figure out how to find that link yourself.

There are probably hundreds of additional ways to begin your search for relevant genealogical books, but only one more example. What if I just start doing a Google search for the Jarvis book? Well, now I will find more than could be believed.

If you try this with some of your own family names you might or might not find information. But you will never know until you start looking.

Books, Ownership, and Copyright

The Western European concept of property ownership as inherited by the United States of America is a very technical and complex subject. The folklore associated with ownership is even more complex. To start out, for example, you may have heard a saying that "possession is 9/10th of the law." Unfortunately, this commonly quoted concept is almost entirely false. Genealogists, because they work with books, documents, and records, get involved in a number of issues involving property ownership of one kind or another. Focusing on the United States, the initial fundamental issue that needs to be understood is that no property rights, either for real property (land) or personal property (everything else) are absolute. Because we all live in the United States, we are all subject to the ultimate ownership rights vested in the Federal, State, and local governments.

How are governmental property rights absolute? Because governments have the right to tax property and can levy against both real and personal property to assure payment of those taxes. Simply put, if you don't pay your taxes, you can lose your property to the government entities. In addition, the United States Constitution has created other government administrated property rights that are superior to any other claims of ownership. The most common of these established property rights that affect genealogists are those dealing with rights to intellectual property through the complex, archaic, and poorly understood laws of copyright, trademark, and patents. As genealogists, there are a number of important laws from the 18th Century that still govern how we conduct our lives and our business interests but the laws of copyright affect our genealogical research lives more directly than some of the other residual laws.

The United States copyright law originated with Article 1, Section 8, Clause 8 of the Constitution which states:

[The Congress shall have power] “To promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries.

Subsequent to the enactment of the U.S. Constitution, the Copyright Law has grown into a strangling jungle of statutory provisions from the United States Legislature and case law imposed by the Federal Court system. The statutory law is also modified and augmented by Title 17 of the United States Code. Here is a short summary of the existing Copyright law (minus the Federal Court decisions) from the Copyright.gov website of the U.S. Copyright Office which is under the administration of its parent agency, The Library of Congress. The Copyright Office administers the national copyright system and provides advice on copyright law to Congress, federal agencies, the courts, and the public.

This publication contains the text of title 17 of the United States Code, including all amendments enacted by Congress through June 30, 2016. It includes the Copyright Act of 1976 and all subsequent amendments to copyright law; the Semiconductor Chip Protection Act of 1984, as amended; and the Vessel Hull Design Protection Act, as amended. The Copyright Office is responsible for registering intellectual property claims under all three. 

The United States copyright law is contained in chapters 1 through 8 and 10 through 12 of title 17 of the United States Code. The Copyright Act of 1976, which provides the basic framework for the current copyright law, was enacted on October 19, 1976, as Pub. L. No. 94-553, 90 Stat. 2541. The 1976 Act was a comprehensive revision of the copyright law in title 17. Listed below in chronological order of their enactment are the Copyright Act of 1976 and subsequent amendments to title 17. 

Chapters 9 and 13 of title 17 contain two types of design protection that are independent of copyright protection. Chapter 9 of title 17 is the Semiconductor Chip Protection Act of 1984 (SCPA), as amended. The SCPA was enacted as title III of Pub. L. No. 98-620, 98 Stat. 3335, 3347, on November 8, 1984. Chapter 13 of title 17 is the Vessel Hull Design Protection Act (VHDPA), as amended. The VHDPA was enacted on October 28, 1998, as title V of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), Pub. L. No. 105-304, 112 Stat. 2860, 2905. Subsequent amendments to the title 17 provisions for SCPA and the VHDPA are also included in the list below, in chronological order of their enactment.

Now let's get down to some specific examples of how copyright law can affect genealogists and of course everyone else in the United States.

Let me do this by means of some hypothetical situations. Let's suppose that as a genealogist you learn about a book written by one of your relatives about your family. You try to contact your relative but find out that she is dead. You try and find a copy of the book and are surprised to learn that she only printed a dozen or so copies and all of those were given to her children and immediate family members. After a great deal of effort, you finally locate a copy of the book that you can borrow from one of the relatives who received the book from the author. Can you make a copy of the entire book? Who could give you permission to make such a copy, i.e. who owns the copyright to the book if there is one? Could you upload a copy of the book online on one of the major genealogical websites so others can have access to the book?

Now let's look at some of the laws regarding copyright. First of all, when was the book published? Hmm. You find out the book was published in 1963. Is the book still covered by U.S. Copyright Law? We can answer some of these questions by referring to the Cornell University Copyright Information Center publication entitled, "Copyright Term and the Public Domain in the United States." That publication gives us a number of possible options depending on whether or not the book (publication or work) contained a notice of copyright. So, you go back to the copy of the book and look for a copyright notice. Now we have to suppose there are two possibilities, that the book either has such a notice or it does not. For a book (or other publication or work) published from 1924 to 1977 if there is no copyright notice, then there is no claim to the copyright and the book is in the public domain because of failure to comply with the then existing formalities. Now what? Well, even if the book has no copyright claim or mark or whatever, if the person registered a copyright claim within five years of the date of publication, then the copyright is in existence for 70 years after the death of the author. There is another qualification in the event the book is a work of corporate authorship, but I will leave that issue to another post if I get around to it.

How do you determine whether or not the author ever registered the copyright? Now you step off into the morass of copyright law. To start, you can begin your search by looking in the Catalog of the Library of Congress to see if they have the required copies of the book.  Copyright registration in the time period in question involved depositing with the Copyright Office (Library of Congress) two copies of the original publication and filling out the application.

But how can you be sure the book is not covered by copyright? The practical answer to this question is you cannot. Theoretically, you could come to a reasonable conclusion that the book either was or was not covered by a claim of copyright, but even if you were to get to this point, you would still have to deal with whoever ended up with the potential copyright ownership, i.e. which of the heirs of deceased author inherited the copyright. Unless the author made a specific bequest in her will concerning the ownership of the copyright, the ownership rights would probably pass according to the law of the state where the deceased author died but the issue of the legal jurisdiction of the copyright ownership might also be difficult to resolve.

Let's suppose that the relative with the book does not want his or her copy and gives it to you. Do you now have the right to copy or republish the book? Unfortunately no. This is where the possession interest is falsely interpreted. Your possession of a copyrighted book or other publications is extremely limited. This also applies to any such book or publication that you purchase. So, even if you purchased a copy of the book from one of your relatives, purchasing a book does not confer any rights that are reserved by virtue of the Copyright Laws. It is only if the book is found to be in the public domain that you could copy or republish the book with impunity.

But what if you just want to use the information in the book? Facts are not subject to copyright, but that still does not give you the right to any portion of the book that is not factual. This issue leads us to the futher doctrine of fair use (usually the Doctrine of Fair Use). The only way I could explain the Doctrine of Fair Use would be to write a book-length post on the subject and that still would not be enough. Issues of fair use are decided one by one by the courts.

So even if you are reading this and looking across the room at your bookcase full of books, you have to realize that your "ownership " of those books is not absolute. Any book, publication, or work may be subject to copyright claims. Can you still function as a genealogist and avoid copyright issues? Yes, sort of. I do know of a few instances where genealogists have gotten into battles over copyright claims. The best practice is to become aware of the basic copyright laws and be circumspect in copying anything that is arguably subject to a copyright claim.

For an extensive discussion of fair use see Columbia University Libraries, Copyright Advisory Services, for an in-depth discussion of the issues involved.