THOU SHALT NOT STEAL

It would appear from multiple reports on Facebook that RootsTech's record-breaking audience also included a number of intellectual property thieves, some who knew better and some who didn't. You need explicit permission to take pictures of a presentation or copy the handout. Without that permission you might as well be snatching their wallet.

Friend and colleague Judy Russell was there and sets us all straight at her blog, The Legal Genealogist. I was not in attendance (I don't do celebrities), but perhaps the organizers could find someone to croon a catchy tune about the Eighth Commandment and/or federal copyright law.

And it's possible to do that without insulting your audience. I remember the country auctioneer in western Illinois who always used to tell people to keep an eye on their stuff: "I know everybody here is honest, but we don't know who might show up later!"

Thou Shalt Not Steal, or Thou Shalt Be Outed

Christmas seems like a good time to talk about not stealing from other blogs or on-line material in general, but Kerry Scott has already done it better than I could hope to do. Good comments there too.



Harold Henderson, "Thou Shalt Not Steal, or Thou Shalt Be Outed," Midwestern Microhistory: A Genealogy Blog, posted 25 December 2012 (http://midwesternmicrohistory.blogspot.com : accessed [access date]). [Please feel free to link to the specific post if you prefer.]

Maps without copyright

For those who worry about copyright issues with the many wonderful maps available on the internet, I know of two good recourses that do not involve delving into the arcana of either the general rules on fair use of maps or a particular source's claims of rights. These are maps produced by the federal government, making good use of our tax dollars:

the National Atlas, and especially the mapmaker part, which deserves an extended discussion in itself but won't get it here; and

the Census Bureau, which has individual state maps of counties in outline, as well as a map of the whole country with counties in outline. That last comes in especially handy when your research targets thoughtfully lived next to the state line. (Thanks to Kathy Lenerz.)

Just because these are not copyrighted does not mean you can claim you made them yourself! Stay calm and cite your source.

Methodology Monday with copyright urban legends

If you worry about copyright -- or if you worry that you don't worry about it enough -- check out this article, "Urban Copyright Legends,"written by copyright lawyer Brandon Butler, in the June 2010 issue of Research Library Issues. I often find it helpful with technical issues to learn what not to think, and this article is perfectly formatted if you swing that way too.

And, no, I don't spend my time perusing RLI, but I do have the widget for The Resource Shelf on my home page. Hat tip to them for highlighting this article.

Indiana Genealogist March 2010

The new quarterly issue of Indiana Genealogist has some treats -- a nice going-away present from editor Annette Harper, who has acquired a job.

Judy Lee transcribed a Civil War journal of unknown origin and has found evidence to attribute it to Gillis J. McBain (1829-1914), a Canadian who died in Idaho. In between, he served as sergeant and sergeant major in Company G of Indiana's 73rd infantry. Like most 19th-century diaristsm McBain is laconic and rarely tells us what we most want to know. Nevertheless he still conveys the soldier's unique mixture of boredom, discomfort, and terror. As a postscript, there' s a shorter journal of his train travel west in 1882.

James R. Miller offers an introduction to philatelic genealogy in Indiana, which consists of using stamps and envelopes as evidence, not trying to determine the family tree of a given stamp. It reminded me uneasily of the old envelopes we destroyed as children in the name of "collecting" the stamps stuck to them.

Jay B. Wright does a clear and concise job of distinguishing between the related but distinct sins of plagiarism and copyright violation. You can do both, or neither, and you can also commit either one without committing the other. Read it, don't try it!