This is a Very Bad Idea!

Copyright protection is a very important issue, both online and offline. I have written about Copyright Issues many times on Olive Tree Genealogy blog. See Copyright Issues

Webmasters with copyrighted works for example, have protection against theft of their content. However the act that protects a webmaster can be (and is) abused!

"In May, the US Copyright Office came to San Francisco to hear from various stakeholders about how well Section 512 of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act or DMCA is working.  The DMCA is the part of copyright law that provides for a “notice and takedown” process for copyrighted works on the Internet." [http://blog.archive.org/ Article by Lila Bailey]

DMCA notices can be sent in error or in spite, by a visitor who does not understand whether or not a webmaster has violated copyright, or bears a personal grudge against a webmaster. This happened to Steve Morse of One-Step Search Engine fame when a false DMCA notice was filed against him. Under the regulations, his site was taken down temporarily by his host server, while being investigated.

".... the Copyright Office is strongly considering recommending changing the DMCA to mandate a “Notice and Staydown” regime." [http://blog.archive.org/ Article by Lila Bailey]

Under this proposed legislation Steve Morse's site would never have been allowed back online!  This is a Very Bad Idea and I urge my readers to read the rest of the article Copyright Office’s Proposed Notice and Staydown System Would Force the Internet Archive and Other Platforms to Censor the Web

Plagiarism Accusations

 Plagiarism and copyright infringement are a serious issue for those of us publishing our work online.  

Ancestry Insider has done some fact-checking on some recent issues. Please read and form your own opinion.

Continue reading More Accusations of Plagiarism Leveled at Barry Ewell

Copyright Issues Raise Their Ugly Head Again

Will it never end? It seems many web surfers don't understand copyright. When something is published on the internet on a website or a blog, it is copyright to whoever wrote it. It is not up for grabs! 

I don't know why folks can't grasp that an article I write, for example, and publish here on my blog or on one of my websites, is copyright to me.  That means it cannot be published elsewhere without my permission. Think of this way - if you go to a Library and borrow Stephen King's latest book to read, you cannot copy it and republish it anywhere - online or offline, without Mr. King's permission. (which of course he would not give) If you do publish without his okay, even if you clearly state that Mr. King wrote the piece, not you, you can bet your life he will sue your (ahem) off.

So why then do some folks think they can come to a website, read something they like and copy and paste it on their own site? That is called COPYRIGHT VIOLATION! And you can be sued.

I have copyright notices on every page of my site. Yet some still continue to take my work and republish it as if they are entitled to do so. Some plead innocence when confronted but ignorance of the law is no defense. Some leave the author's name on it and even provide a link to the original website, as if that makes everything okay. But theft is theft and violating someone's copyright is, in my opinion, theft. 

Many people also confuse plagiarism and copyright. 

Plagiarism is when someone takes your work and presents it as their own.  I've had that happen to me. A genealogist with a weekly newspaper column took an article from my website, published it word for word in a very large American newspaper and put her name as the author. After a thorough investigation, the newspaper fired her. These are serious offenses we're talking about. And I don't back down. If you take my work, I'll pursue every legal avenue available to get you to stop. 

Copyright violation or infringement is when someone takes  work which is protected by copyright laws without permission.

What can you do if someone takes your hard work without permission? You can write to the person and demand they remove it. I like to give two options - remove the unauthorized work within 24 hours or pay me a publication fee of $500.00. Those who violate copyright need to understand that an author's work is worth money.

If the person isn't compliant, file a DMCA complaint with their website or blog provider. Send the DMCA notice to the person who took your without permission.

Don't let it go. We should all protect our work and take what we do seriously. It is not okay for others to do a hit and run with no regard for legalities or respect for the work of others.

The Plagiarism Problem Rears its Ugly Head

Plagiarism. What is it? Why is it a problem? 

Plagiarism is defined as the practice of taking someone else's work or ideas and passing them off as one's own. Copyright laws are there to protect our work but the internet has given rise a new breed of plagiarists and copyright violators who believe that if something is published online it is up for grabs.

Not so. Plagiarism is unethical and against copyright laws. Publishing on the internet is no different than publishing in a book. Once you write and publish something on a website or a blog it is copyright protected.  

There are many who mistakenly believe that as long as they don't try to make money from taking your work, it is okay. Nope. The reasons for the theft are not important. Theft is theft. Copyright violations and plagiarism are theft. 

Copyright and plagiarism are not the same thing however. Copyright is the legal right given to an author to publish his/her works and to authorize others to share them (or refuse permission for others to share them). Plagiarism is when copyright is violated and the person who took the material attaches their own name as if they had written it.

I have had my own share of plagiarists. The most blatant was in 2011 when a writer for a large newspaper in Texas took an article I had written and published on my Olive Tree Genealogy website, and published it in the newspaper she worked for with her name as the author. She even used an identical layout to mine. This woman, to my shock, was a well known and highly placed member of one of the largest American Genealogy Societies.

After getting nowhere trying to discuss the problem with her privately, I wrote to the editor of the newspaper. He and his Ethics Committee investigated my complaint and found my accusations to be true. This woman had worked for the newspaper writing a weekly column on genealogy for almost 20 years. The Ethics Committee took action.  The newspaper fired her and the article was pulled from its online spot. My article with her name as author had gone out the day before in the print edition so a retraction and apology was issued in the next print edition.

I share this with my readers to point out that Plagiarism and Copyright violations happen frequently and they are a serious problem that needs to be dealt with. If your work has been copied without your permission you need to take action. Do not let it slide. Do you think Stephen King shrugs his shoulders if someone pirates one of his novels and republishes it? Your published work is no different. It is protected by copyright and you need to defend your copyright at all times. 

Your first step should be to attach a copyright notice to your online articles. But be aware that this does not often deter the unethical among us. In fact, the article I wrote which this woman attached her name to, has this notice at the bottom of it

This article was written by Lorine McGinnis Schulze of The Olive Tree Genealogy at http://olivetreegenealogy.com/index.shtml Permission to copy is granted as long as the article remains AS IS. No changes may be made to the article and all identifying information and website link must remain intact! This Permission to Copy notice must remain with the article

Even though the use of this specific article was clearly defined, the woman who copied and used it not only removed all reference to me or my website, she put her name as the author.

What brought this back to my mind is the latest in a run of unethical behaviour by a genealogist. To learn more please read GenealogyInTime's article Let's Talk About Plagiarism about an apparent case of plagiarism via email newsletters which affects them personally. 

Plagiarism is not okay and we as a community of genealogists must do our best to stop it from happening. 

Monday Musings: Copyright and Plagiarism

A rather lively discussion of Copyright went on yesterday in a Facebook group. Sadly it degenerated into a couple of participants engaging in name-calling and emotional tirades. But the topic is important and I have been thinking about it more this morning.


One the one side were those who insisted that if you put something online (a family tree, an article, a photo) you must be prepared for it to be taken and used without your permission. 

A few declared that if we don't want our work taken then don't put it online. Then there were those who mistakenly thought that as long as the item(s) taken were not being sold or used to make money in some way, it was okay.

Those groups are wrong. We should not simply shrug our shoulders and ignore copyright violations. Anything original online is immediately under copyright and deserves our protection. That's where education comes in. Many times people violate copyright because they truly do not understand how the internet works and what the copyright laws are. 

In response to the suggestion that if we don't want our work taken, don't put it online -  if we independent webmasters stopped putting articles, photos, and data collections online, all the free websites and blogs would quickly disappear. 

As for the misconception that as long as the stolen work is not being used to profit the person who took it without permission, it does not matter what the intent is. Taking published work without permission violates copyright.

Definitions

There seemed to be confusion over copyright vs plagiarism vs fair use. Here are some definitions that were posted during the discussion yesterday

Definition of plagiarism: copying the work of someone else and publishing it as your own without permission and without crediting the work to the author. [Cyndi Ingle on https://www.facebook.com/groups/17834741205/ ]

Definition of fair use: purposely gray area in copyright law. Fair use includes using something for purely educational purposes or for review or for satire. But the *amount* of something that can be copied and called fair use is purposely vague. It depends on a case by case basis. [Cyndi Ingle on https://www.facebook.com/groups/17834741205/]

and the definition of copyright from the Merriam-Webster dictionary

Copyright:  the exclusive legal right to reproduce, publish, sell, or distribute the matter and form of something (as a literary, musical, or artistic work) 

Examples

Basically it means if I write and publish an article on my blog or my website, and you copy it without my permission and republish it elsewhere, you violated my copyright. It does not matter whether or not you gave attribution to me as the author, it's still a copyright violation. 

If you take a paragraph or a few sentences from my original article and use them in a new article you are writing that is fair use. But if you neglect to cite me as the original author of those words, it's plagiarism

How to Play Fair and Stay Out of Trouble

It's wise to always read a website's Terms of Use or Copyright Statement/Notice to find out what the restrictions (if any) are on items on that specific site. Big companies such as Ancestry.com have very specific Terms of Use that must be followed by anyone using the site. Smaller websites, such as my Olive Tree Genealogy, usually have a Copyright Notice of some kind that explains what the restrictions are for copying items on the site.

Suggested Reading

Cyndi's List has quite a few links related to Copyright Laws and Issues at http://www.cyndislist.com/ip/

 

Personal Opinion About Copyright and Plagiarism Online

Today I want to point my readers to two blog posts which discuss what to me is a very important topic - copyright and plagiarism on the internet.

This is an issue that hits home as I have had many instances of my work being copied without my permission and published online. I always fight it. I will not allow anyone to get away with violating my copyright. It is my right to publish original works online and to have them respected.

The most recent episode that happened to me involved a well-known and highly placed member of a North American Genealogical Society. This person also wrote a genealogy column for a large American newspaper. I have never talked about it on this blog, and do not intend to give names  but briefly I will share with you the relevant points.

An article I had written and published on my website Olive Tree Genealogy, was copied verbatim and published in an online American newspaper *and* in print - with my name removed as author and replaced with the columnist's name. No attempt had been made to contact me to ask permission and I certainly would not have agreed to someone else's name being put on my original writing. Had the columnist asked my permission to publish my article with my name attached as the author and a link back to my site, I would have agreed. That's called attribution and is the proper ethical way to behave.

My email (low-keyed and polite) to the columnist resulted in a very dismissive response from her. She told me that she "might consider" giving me credit for the IDEA behind her article. Wow. It was my article word for word except for a 3 or 4 words being changed to a similar word such as "suggestion" now being the word "tip". Even the layout was identical.

I don't deal with unreasonable people so my next step was to write to the newspaper editor. I provided the link to my article and the link to the article in his newspaper. His reaction was to immediately pull the online article while he investigated further. The newspaper ethics committee was called in and after much discussion back and forth with me and with the columnist, they agreed "her" article had been copied outright from mine.  She was then dismissed from her position with the newspaper.

The newspaper then printed an apology and retraction in their print version since it had gone to press and could not be stopped. It reached thousands of subscribers. All in all a somewhat happy ending since this person was held accountable by one segment of her genealogy world - the newspaper.

My opinion is we need accountability! We need to accept that there will be consequences to our actions. Unethical behaviour should not be tolerated. And guess what - copyright does exist on the internet! It is no different than if someone writes a book or a song - it is copyright to that individual the minute it is published online or offline. It's not there for the taking and we genealogists need to respect copyright and read the conditions attached to the website we are visiting.  Do they allow for copying for personal use? Do they not allow any reproduction? We must read the copyright policies and follow them.

 There is a lot of discussion among bloggers and webmasters  as to how to handle the rampant unethical behaviour that often occurs.  I urge you to read the following excellent pieces about unethical practices online.

"Copyright, plagiarism, and citing your sources" by Michael Hait at http://michaelhait.wordpress.com/2013/07/07/copyright/ is a must-read

Please also read Dear Myrt's blog post "Is there such a thing as ethical plagiarism?" at http://blog.dearmyrtle.com/2013/07/is-there-such-thing-as-ethical.html

Update: Please also read other bloggers' posts about this important and disturbing issue

How Genealogy Plagiarism and Copyright Infringement Makes Everyone a Loser by Denise Levenick

Time to Name Names by Michele Simmons Lewis

Image courtesy of Stuart Miles / FreeDigitalPhotos.net