Perhaps you have discovered that one of your ancestors was, in fact, a pirate. He “sailed the seven seas”, and you discovered him while surfing the internet. Genealogists need to be very careful that they do not accidentally become a pirate themselves. Be wary of what you choose to post online!
The word “pirate” has more than one definition. One brings to mind images of ships with great big sails, the Jolly Roger flag, and perhaps some of the scenes from Disney’s “Pirates of the Caribbean” movies. The more modern meaning of pirate often refers to the illegal practice of posting something online that is not your own work without getting permission from the person who created it.
Genealogists probably have the best of intentions when they share their research with their relatives. Most genealogists do not get up in the morning and decide that today is the day they will commit an act of piracy on the internet. However, it is possible to accidentally do that if you are unaware of things like copyright law, and how to determine if something is approved for use through creative commons.
Here are a few tips that can help you to avoid becoming a pirate.
Don’t post the video or audio recording that you took while attending a lecture, workshop, or genealogy class. If you didn’t get explicit permission from the person or people who presented the event, then you didn’t really have permission to make a recording of it. Technically, you have created a “bootleg” copy of the information. That might be ok for you to use, personally, for your own research. Just don’t put it online. You don’t own the content of what you recorded.
Don’t post photos unless you are the one that took them. Yes, it is tempting to add those old family photos that your cousin emailed to you onto your Facebook page, or your personal blog. However, you need to make sure that you aren’t breaking copyright laws first. If your cousin was the one that took those photos, then you can probably ask him or her for permission to post them. If you don’t know who originally took the photo, then you can’t ask for permission to put it online. So, don’t do it.
Don’t scrape content from someone else’s genealogy blog, word for word, and post it onto your genealogy blog. You didn’t create that piece of writing, and you probably didn’t ask for permission to re-post it. If you feel the need to use one or two quotes from someone else’s writing, then make sure you link to the original source. Make sure you clearly attribute who the quote was from.
Image by Ben Walther on Flickr