What is copyright?

"Under current Australian law it is still a breach of copyright to copy, reproduce or adapt copyright material for personal or private use without permission from the copyright owner." (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright)

I doubt that there is a clear answer to the copyright question as it seems to be continually debated in the courts.

I have one question that seems to challenge the whole idea of copyright. If I copy a photograph that someone else put on Geni, and that photo was subject to copyright, where do I stand? It seems that in copying a copyrighted item to the web as a public item it becomes open slather.

For images that are copyrighted, even if you got it elsewhere, you are still accountable. (I'm clear on photography!). In genealogical use often enough adding a credit is what's wanted, and good taste in not re distributing near time images without explicit permission; nothing is more upsetting, even if you got it from somebody who downloaded from somewhere etc etc. On the other hand historic "found" images are, I would think, much appreciated, particularly if provenance is attached / attachable.

http://www.deadfred.com/termsofservice_05.php

"Everything posted here is posted in the good faith belief that it is either in the public domain or falls within the reasonable use clause of the copyright act. If, however, you believe that anything posted here infringes on a copyright you hold, simply send us an email and the image will be removed."

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So there you have it from a photo archiving service: no court action or threats necessary; just advise the error, will be fixed.

A good attitude for everyone I think.

On my profile here on Geni is a photograph of me taken by my wife with my camera. So the copyrightowner is my wife. I have asked her if it is ok for me to publish it on Geni and it was. But these two persons on MH have copied the picture and published it on their webpages on MH: https://www.myheritage.no/research/collection-1/myheritage-familiet... and https://www.myheritage.no/research/collection-1/myheritage-familiet... Both of these are in violation of the norwegian copyright laws and could, if I wanted to, take them to court or report them to the police.

Right, good description. (I doubt we'd get much action from local police in US though.). Or ... Ask them to remove your personal photo.

Many people may have a "press photo / authorized image" or from attendance at a professional event. I think both sorts of images could be copyrighted by the photographer but have more limited use rights available.

Oh, I have asked them to remove it, Erica. No response. And I wouldn't get more action from the norwegian police than you would get from the US counterpart.

Poor sportsmanship by the manager, and / or naiveté. Shame. So we try to model better.

I didn't expect a response either, as on a lot of profiles on Geni where I have some questions about the event/facts mentioned, most of the time the profile admins doesn't respond. Maybe my questions is to hard or to embarrassing to respnd to. I usually ask about the sources of the information and how trustworthy those sources are.

I get a lot of queries as a curator. Often the answer(s) are in the profile overview / attached documents & members are not familiar with "opening up" from tree view to explore all the ways a profile can be enriched. How reliable can be surprising; there are (still) a lot of mixups because of similar names (see the current two James Trotter discussion).

Remi. Increasingly, the info added to a profile is by someone who is not a manager, and the manager may not have a clue as to what you are talking about. To me, managers are no longer relevant in a wiki site.- you want to communicate with the person who entered the data. After a merge, you probably don't know who that person is.

Back to subject. If I wanted to copy Remi's own photo from MH, how could I possibly determine provenance and that the copier to MH had violated copyright?

As it would be close to impossible to determine the provenance of each and every photo included, I can presume that a large gedcom extract from a wiki site such as Geni must include multiple copyright violations, such as that demonstrated by Remi.

As much of Geni was created originally from gedcom imports, the same must surely apply to the photos contained within it.

To study who contributed what has been fairly easy in my parts of the tree: overview revisions are person / time stamped; documents are person stamped; and the revisions tab shows updates to profiles.

I think there are limits on GED export (Remi would better answer). There's also common sense. If my export includes candid photos from within the last 70 (?) years, fairly recognizable by clothing style, I risk copyright violation to re display it.

After a merge, get out your crystal ball as to who entered what. My concern with folks needlessly using merges in Smartcopy.

Basic members MUST include the last 70 years (is that the US restriction?) in a gedcom extract, as it must be targeted from their own profile. These are routinely imported elsewhere, especially to MH, as Remi has noticed.

When you export, you then have to import to another site, so you have control over what you put up. If you've caught a candid image - review, remove. If you really want it keep in your desktop software. And certainly remove on request, as deadfred does (even though they're reasonably sure everyone shown on the site is dead).

Gedcom doesn't export the image, it only includes the path to the picture. The person must then open the internetpage shown in the path and from there download the picture manually, then upload it again in the new genealogical software. So these guys must have downloaded my picture from my Geni-profile (or an illegal copy of it somewhere else). This is a willfull act and saying they were ignorant of the copyright law doesn't help them.

Remi's seems to be the more usual occurrence - but -- According to what I read in the Past - if one did the Gedcom import to another program while connected to the internet and logged in to Geni, then it would import the photos. Do not know if always true, but seems it definitely happened for some folks.

Doesn't change the case. A profile manager is responsible for content, therefore copyright violation.

Excuse me - Is a Profile Manager actually responsible for all the Documents and Photos others upload to a Profile??

I thought it would be the person who did the uploading who would be responsible.

Mike Stangel said back in 2012 that "we're continuing to de-emphasize the role of "manager" on public profiles."
http://www.geni.com/discussions/80793?msg=782349 -- Has he reversed his position on this? or is Erica in serious disagreement with him on this, or is it just habit that has her repeatedly referring to "profile manager" as if that is an extremely important position?

I don't speak for Geni, I speak for myself as a member. I am also not writing legalese or FAQ, i am speaking "informally.". Can you chill a little on testing every single word against the record? Please?

Documents and images I upload are "owned" by the Geni member and they are responsible for content, that is in terms of service.

So ... In Remi's use case, he has taken responsibility for the image on his profile and obtained appropriate permission. BTW his word is good enough, we don't need a copyright mark, or a release from his wife, etc.

But if for some reason I "re shared" that image without explicit permission, i am held responsible, even if I downloaded from google images or such and dont have the least idea of whom to ask for permission. If I kept it on my desktop for example, though, that would be less an issue, as I'm not re distributing.

I think that's how it would work, and not sure what google images liability is, if any.

Re: importance of profile manager. Again, this is common sense. The profile managers for my father's profile are quite relevant & meaningful; the 1,000 or so for grandpa Charlesmagne, not so much.

Erica, you have understood what I've said. You can download the image in my profile to your own computer and look at it as much as you wan't (oh, what a wonderful thought :-) )and it would be legal, but as soon as you uploaded the image to your facebook or MH, you would be braking the copyright law.

It is the responsibility of the person uploading the picture he/she doesn't know the origin of or doesn't know who the photographer was to make sure he/she isn't violating any copyright laws.

Interesting article by Judy Russell ("The Legal Genealogist")

She often writes about copyright issues.

Where is the Public Domain?
http://www.legalgenealogist.com/blog/2015/12/21/where-is-the-public...

Once a person(legal) and(multimedia related) have become public or handle as a public(place it few time on internet) there is no law that can be aply whetever juridiction. its no mean that some one will sue you(general) or just take action as adverse possesion!

We in (Canada) have a long and very private Family Genealogy and sudenly with a little change of the naming /remove the (DIT) name was one of the trick to access the information as cultural patrymony or our contry its all GENEALOGY public

now is there action to protect family genealogy? =yes
HOW?= study law or get involved in criminal activity =no one will touch your family or BOTH :p

personaly if some one ask me to pay a litle fee of 25 dollard am ok to open a notary contract my retribution is 250 dollard just to ofiicialise the payment of the little fee its fair!

question - is this about something 1st published something OR something "created."

When it comes to photos - is this issue about the photographer OR about being the 1st to "put it out there."

I have put out several hundred OLD photos, whose original I have and are probably the ONLY copy in existence. I "published" them," but am not the
photographer (who is LOOOOONG dead). So, do I own these ????

What about all of the other types and dates of photos of the individuals on whom we are working ?

To me, this is very, very different question that a document someone "created" from scratch !!!

You may own the print of the photo but are not the copyright holder unless 1.) you were the photographer
OR
2.) the copyright holder assigned the rights to you (usually in a formal legal statement or bequeathed them to you in their will).
If neither of those apply, then you are not the copyright holder and the onus is on you to determine if you have the legal authority to publish them. This may require research to determine who was the photographer/s, when the photo was taken and if the photo was ever published. If the photographer cannot be determined, the copyright lasts for 120 years from date of creation. If the photo has been published, U.S. copyright lasts for the life of the photographer PLUS 70 years. It doesn't matter who "put it out there". The copyright holder (or the heirs) have the sole legal right to decide
1. Whether to publish;
2. When to publish; and
3. Where to publish.
Posting on an internet site is publishing. Copying from one site to another withOUT the copyright holder's permission is infringement.
From Geni's Terms:
"You may not post, modify, distribute, or reproduce in any way any copyrighted material, trademarks, or other proprietary information belonging to others without obtaining the prior written consent of the owner of such proprietary rights. It is the policy of Geni to terminate Membership privileges of any Member who repeatedly infringes the copyright rights of others upon receipt of prompt notification to Geni by the copyright owner or the copyright owner's legal agent."

I have been posting copyright information on the images that i upload by using 'comment' feature (since it can be added to, but not edited by others). But now i notice that there's 'private' icon on the top of my comments, does it mean that others are unable to see what i'm posting? Is there a way to make my comments publicly visible?

The general rule about copyright is that claiming it does not necessary mean you have it.
Remember that copyright rules is meant to protect stuff to be used commercially by someone else.

I have a large base of old images which I post to public sites and many of them are scanned from old negatives and even glass-plates. Making them public helps me identifying the photos and preserving them from the history and I would never claim copyright to them, except if people tries to make money of them or claim that they are the source for the images. That would cause hard reactions from me, but I doubt that I can claim copyright on images I have not taken myself.

Volodya Mozhenkov that could be associated with the privacy rules of the album where the image is stored, which "I believe" can be set to public or private (others who work more with albums should answer).

I use comments also, not only for clear attribution, but to help describe the context of the image.

What Bjorn describes is a responsible historian & genealogist attitude.

That way of doing it works fine i Norway, Bjørn, as long as it is more than 15 years since the photographer died or it is more than 50 years ago since the photo was taken, which ever comes first. So if the photo was taken in 1967 or later, or the photographer is still alive or died after 2001, it is illegal to publish without permission from the photographer or his/her heirs.

Remi, - what is your comment to people claiming copyright to old photos they have not taken them self and are sure they have the only copy of?

Copyright when talking about Norwegian photos id only held by the photographer or his/her heirs. There is a theoretically possibility that the photographer could have sold the copyright to someone, but it's not very liekly since they then would lose all possibilities to publish that picture anywhere, and I don't think ay photographer is that stupid.

People claiming copyright to old photos they have not taken them selves are invalid, even if they have the only copy.

Photos taken by Norwegian photographers taken before 1966 (50 years) are free for anyone to publish anywhere they like unless the photo meets the criterias to be an "original work" (verkshøyde på norsk), or it's less than 15 years since the photographer died. If the photo is an "original work" (fotografisk verk på norsk) it's copyrighted until 70 years after the photographers death. Photos taken at studios and portraits taken by professional photographers fall under this §.