Copyright Information
The following information
is for those who are concerned about the nature of the copyright of items
placed on the OHGenWeb Archives.
This page is NOT
required reading for anyone wishing to submit
files for Archiving.
The Archives are
intended for information that is in the Public Domain, i.e. that which
is uncopyrightable, or the copyright has expired.
OHGenWeb Archives
will not knowingly place any file online that is under copyright, without
permission of the copyright owner.
In placing files on the Archives, the following general guidelines have been used:
1. ALL items with
an ORIGINAL publishing or copyright date prior to 1923 are public domain.
Anyone, including OHGenWeb Archives, may use them and distribute them freely.
Other types of
"public domain" records, regardless of their date, would be:
Government public records;
other public records; names, or simple lists of names.
[However, in order
to maintain the good will of the individual Chapters of the Ohio Genealogical
Society, et al, we will not knowingly post any portion from their "in print"
publications containing transcriptions prepared for their societies, without
their permission.]
2. For items between
1923 and 1950, in order to still be copyrighted, the copyright holder
must have renewed the copyright before the date it originally expired(
a term of 28 years ). However, because of the difficulty in determining
the renewal of copyright for most documents of this period (as well as
1950 to present), it is required of the submitter to provide assurance*
of non-copyright for other than "public domain" materials.
[*One exception
to this would be newspaper items (e.g. obits) before 1950: generally, any
copyright on those has expired.]
If
you wish to reproduce any document archived here at OHGenWeb:
U.S. Copyright
Law allows for 'fair use' of copyrighted material; 'fair use'
being reproduction
of small portions for research. Reproduction of larger
portions of copyrighted
work will require the permission of the copyright
owner.
Commercial use
of OHGenWeb Archives' files is prohibited.
Any of the above
is not to be construed as legal advice. |