> List Members:
>
> Is the information regarding persons, since deceased 'owned' by their
> descendants?
>
> Family database which included first husband's family, I am being harassed
> via email with threats of legal action if I do not remove as the
> "information is copyrighted by census. Please remove all information
> pertaining to Clara and family off the web as you have not gotten written
> permision to copyright or print or release this information. " Clara's
> maiden name is not even mentioned.
>
> (there is no information above their names and three persons date of death,
> plus the year of the the first marriage (NO notation of place of marriage,
> birthplace.. well, all names mentioned are dead/deceased/ long gone)
This person is full of hot air.
The census cannot be copyrighted. No federal government document can
be copyrighted--this is proscribed in the constitution--and the
census data is no exception. But even if the data was actually
copyrighted, the person threatening you is implying that *he* holds
the copyright to the family information. This is simply not the
case. If the federal government was actually allowed to copyright
census information, then this bozo would have no way of knowing
whether you had obtained permission to use the data. And
furthermore, for the small amount of data that you are using, you
would be covered by the fair use doctrine anyway.
You don't need permission to publish public information. In this
case, the public information is the birth date and place, marriage
date. The maiden name is definitely public information, as it will
be on the marriage certificate and birth certificate, which are
themselves public. All of this, of course, assumes that these events
took place somewhere in the USA. In other countries, YMMV.
This person is merely being unpleasant, but has no legal basis for
what he is demanding. If you have no need to compromise with this
person for other than legal reasons, then don't feel obligated to do
so.
So let this person follow through on their threat, go to a lawyer and
find out, at his expense, that you have the right to re-publish
freely available public information. Chances are, though, that he is
trying to intimidate you into doing what he wants, since he can't get
it legally.
Think about it--would the Mormons--or all the other geneology
research organizations--be able to publish their database of 70
million plus names if they had to get permission of every living
family member to do so? They don't go to that kind of trouble
because there's no need to.
