Copyright does not protect facts, ideas, systems, or methods of operation, although it may protect the way these things are expressed. Copied from the What Does Copyright Protect? at the U.S. Copyright Office FAQ.
Allen County INGenWeb Project is part of the volunteer INGenWeb Project and USGenWeb Project providing Free online genealogical information since 1996.
We attempt to provide current links to online sources, but "link rot" is a given on the internet when pages edit or delete information. If you find errors or omissions please Contact Allen INGenWeb.
Link Rot is threatening our digital history, with content disappearing faster than ever (MTV News, Cartoon Network,...
Link Rot is threatening our digital history, with content disappearing faster than ever (MTV News, Cartoon Network, etc.). But the Wayback Machine is working to preserve this history! Check out The Verge interview with Mark Graham, Director of the Wayback Machine, about how this service keeps vital info from being lost.
Each January 1st, a new class of creative works enters the public domain, which means they are no longer protected by copyright.
This year's class includes "Steamboat Willie," the first film with sound to feature the characters Mickey and Minnie Mouse! Registered with the Copyright Office (which is part of the Library of Congress) in 1928, the film launched Walt Disney's hugely successful career.
"They stole something from you. For decades, they stole it. That thing they stole? Your entire culture. For all of human history, works created in living memory entered the public domain every year. 40 years ago, that stopped.
First in 1976, and then again in 1998, Congress retroactively extended copyright's duration by 20 years, for all works, including works whose authors were unknown and long dead, whose proper successors could not be located. Many of these authors were permanently erased from history as every known copy of their works disappeared before they could be brought back into our culture through reproduction, adaptation and re-use (copyright is "strict liability," meaning that even if you pay to clear the rights to a work from someone who has good reason to believe they control those rights, if they're wrong, you are on the hook as an infringer, and the statutory damages run to six figures).
Works that are still in our cultural currents 50 or 70 or 90 years after their creation are an infinitesimal fraction of all the works we create as a species. But these works are – by definition – extraordinarily important to our culture. The creators who made these works were able to plunder a rich public domain of still-current works as inputs to their own enduring creations. The slow-motion arson attack on the public domain meant that two generations of creators were denied the public domain that every other creator in the history of the human race had enjoyed.
As 2019 drew nearer, the copyright resistance who had fought over this grew nervous, then…elated. Was Congress actually going to heed the evidence of a decades-long failed experiment and decline to extend copyright again?"…
The Public Domain Review is dedicated to the exploration of curious and compelling works from the history of art, literature, and ideas – focusing on works now fallen into the public domain, the vast commons of out-of-copyright material that everyone is free to enjoy, share, and build upon without restrictions. and registered in the UK as a Community Interest Company (#11386184), a category of company which exists primarily to benefit a community or with a view to pursuing a social purpose, with all profits having to be used for this purpose. Copied from their website: https://publicdomainreview.org/, Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/PublicDomainReview
Wondering what's moving into the public domain in the US in just a few days? Our colleagues at Duke Law's Center for the Study of the Public Domain have published their annual review: https://web.law.duke.edu/cspd/publicdomainday/2023/
What is Public Domain? December 18, 2019 U.S. Copyright Office on YouTube
The public domain covers works not protected by copyright. Learn which works are in the public domain and how works become a part of it. For more information on Copyright, visit their website: https://copyright.gov/
Fair Use October 30, 2019 U.S. Copyright Office on YouTube
In this video, find out what "fair use" is and how it applies when you are looking to use a copyright-protected work. Learn the factors that go into evaluating whether or not a case meets fair use standards. Additional Resources: Fair Use Index: https://www.copyright.gov/fair-use/; For more information on Copyright, visit their website: https://copyright.gov/
From our archives ... "Conference Presentations & Copyrights"
"A history enthusiast, in an online forum that will go unnamed, was singing the praises of conference presentations for self-education. He noted the pros and cons of both live and recorded instruction. He spoke highly of the syllabus material some conferences provide, often numerous pages that distill the main points of each speaker’s presentation. All well and good. Then he plunged head first into the quagmire of legal rights: ... < read more >
