ESSEX-UK-L Archives

Archiver > ESSEX-UK > 2008-06 > 1214319984


From: "Peter Layzell" <>
Subject: [Ess] FW: Publishing the Essepubs site
Date: Tue, 24 Jun 2008 16:06:24 +0100


Kevan
Firstly can I say what a great and useful site you run - My sites are much
smaller than yours but I know just how many hours they take to maintain.

Secondly- I had hoped that on this list with so many well informed people
there would have been a definitive reply by now but as there hasn't I
thought that I would add my 'two penneth worth' and hopefully stimulate some
more advice..

Copyright with it's ally Data protection are not good friends of genealogy!

Although I an annoyed by the restrictions I try to comply with the law so I
went through a similar period of doubt in 2007 and as a result tried to
research the law on copyright / data protection as it affected my websites.

The below advice is my understanding so please treat it with caution and
check it out yourself.

The first and main problem is that virtually all of the advice on these
issues from 'respected sites' relates to protecting copyright for copyright
holders and ensuring compliance with data protection. Its all YOU MUST and
PENALTIES FOR BREACH with virtually no YOU CAN.
There is little advice on line in how to maximise the use of material while
staying within the law and much of what there is comes from sources that are
on the whole less reliable and not sites on which I would place trust if
confronted by the Data Controller and his henchmen.

This is short-sighted on the part of Government as most people want to
comply with the law so good guidance for people like us would probably mean
less breaches.

Copyright covers all form of media so there is no difference between you
publishing a picture/ info on your website or on a CD - In law it is the
same and a breach would be treated similarly.

There are special concessions in the copyright and data protection acts that
apply to genealogists but only for information held personally for personal
and non commercial research i.e. I have data on people still alive but I
cannot publish it on my website without their specific approval and
registration with the data registrar. It's Ok for me to hold it as long as
the data I hold is reasonable and I have if for legit purpose. As most of my
data comes from previously published or public sources that is OK if I
obtained if from private sources then my holding or use would be more
questionable.

Photos of private premises ( in your case pubs) can be taken without
approval of the owner as long as they are taken from public places i.e. a
road and do not identify any person.

Copyright lasts for so long on most material that books etc need to date
back to pre 1900 to be of any use and photos have to go back to 1937.
That means that for you to use any photos taken after 1937 must either have
been taken by yourself or the person taking them must have given approval.
Approval is normally in writing but can be verbal although verbal approval
can be forgotten in later years.

I have occasionally used Wiki Commons for photos and materials as most there
are free of copyright but you still need to be careful. Although the person
who supplied the photo to Wiki as free of copyright it still doesn't mean
that it actually is free of copyright!

Much of the material you mention, as having less interesting content than
your site, especially that on E bay , simply pirates material ( your site
will certainly have been pirated and I have found word for word copies of
mine on sites all over the net) and thus breaches copyright although some
use out of copyright books or material produced without copyright
restrictions like the much maligned Wikipedia and stay within the law. On
the subject of Wikipedia - this carried quite well balanced entry on
copyright in the UK with links to official and unofficial sites on copyright
and data protection. This article seems fairly accurate and has not been
subject to the hacking that plagues wiki as a credible site.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright_law_of_the_United_Kingdom

Most museums display copyright info that has words to the effect - we have
tried to make sure that none of our material breaches copyright but if you
think it does please contact us - see the copyright/ data protection pages
on my websites( www.essex-family-history.co.uk/otherpageindex.htm ) as I
have tried to copy the best wording from several history based or legal
advice websites( that may be a breach of copyright itself). This warning
does not allow you to escape copyright/data but it does give an indication
of your intent and provides an way for someone to challenge directly rather
than the more painful way of challenge via the data controller. An example
from Liverpool museums is at
http://www.liverpoolmuseums.org.uk/about/copyright/

Copyright etc seems to get worse if you sell things as anyone complaining at
a breach of copyright on my free sites is likely to write a threatening
letter and when I take the offending picture down the matter would be closed
but if you are making money they may well ask for financial compensation.

You could ask the army of friends of your website to take up to date pics -
I have photos of all Pubs and Churches in my area and so you are certainly
welcome to help yourself to any Of Burnham on Crouch and the surrounding
area of Eastern Essex from my sites.

The problem you have as far as the CD - is it worth all that extra work to
earn a few pounds.

A search on UK Copyright brings up thousands of hits on the rootsweb mailing
lists although they seem spread over many lists the other possibility is a
long night looking at these threads to see if the definitive answer is out
there but just not read yet.

I am afraid that this may add to your confusion but at least you know that
you are not the only one out there who is confused.

Peter
OPC Burnham on Crouch and the Dengie 100 Villages
www.essex.family-history.co.uk
www.essex-country-life.co.uk
www.dengie.org.uk
www.burnham.org.uk


-----Original Message-----
From:
[mailto:]On Behalf Of Kevan
Sent: 23 May 2008 01:37
To:
Subject: [Ess] Publishing the Essepubs site


All,

This is really a feedback question, and I will be posting the same to
London Rootsweb.



As the Essex Pubs site is all freely available on the internet, and
updated from the original by Ian Hunter (who owns the site – bless him), a
question. The site now also includes Suffolk, Kent, London, Herts & Sussex.



I am forever seeing books on historical Pubs, always interesting, but
with far less content than can be seen by viewing this site, i.e.
http://londonpublichouse.com/ .





I decided tonight that perhaps I could publish the site, as a CD / DVD,
freely available to all libraries & record offices, but at a cost to the
general public, say £25, with a percentage going to World Vision (whom I
support already).



Firstly, is there a copyright law which states that I cannot do this, as
much of the material has been supplied by people known / unknown, e.g. by
charging for a copy of something that is freely available on the internet,
am I breaking this copyright?



Secondly, I always feel that the search engines miss much of the excellent
material on the site, partly because I tend to move sites more often than I
should, and much of the image content has to be manually searched and
indexed ( I believe). There is nothing on the site that is blocked to
general access, therefore selling a CD / DVD just makes it easier for
people to access the same.



Lastly, to put this into book /published format; with about 17,000 pages
and in excess of 4,000 images is one BIG book. An CD would be better served
for this purpose, but again, this also gives people access to the source
pictures, although again I repeat, this is all freely available on the
internet.





I would welcome any feedback on this idea.

Thanks

Kevan

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Any problems, please contact the List Admin:
-------------------------------
To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to
with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes
in the subject and the body of the message

This thread: