Copyright
Cornwall Family History Society
The Cornwall Family History Society outlines its detailed copyright policy, encouraging fair use of its data for personal or academic purposes while safeguarding its rights and clarifying guidelines for lookups and data sharing.
This Copyright statement is necessarily detailed and complex in parts, but in essence it means that we have NO OBJECTIONS to fair use being made of our published or unpublished data in a form of lookup service. In fact we would welcome such lookup services as being of benefit to those who may not have the ability to make direct use of our indexes.
The Cornwall Family History Society requires a copyright statement, below, to be passed to anyone receiving data from a lookup on one of our indexes or transcriptions. If the Full Copyright Statement is not practical then the Short Copyright Statement is acceptable. Note that this complete statement MUST be read and understood by anyone providing data via a lookup or similar service.
The Cornwall Family History Society is not averse to lookups being performed from their indexes and transcriptions but we really need to clarify how we would allow this under existing copyright legislation. The rather extensive details below are to clear up the point about lookups for you and others so that we can co-exist happily in our pursuit of Family History. Please do not take them as a negative point of view. Whereas before we have been against lookups in general, we are now keen to reverse that position. The data used in our indexes is probably subject to more than one copyright although it may be argued that the source data is in the public domain. That is an avenue that we do not intend to pursue. The data as transcribed, prepared and entered by the Cornwall Family History Society is our copyright and there is no current intention to waive or remove that copyright, which will under law exist until at least 50 years after the death of the Author. The above period may change according to law.
The copyright law as applied by the Cornwall Family History Society is in accordance with UK Law, and under law may have application in other countries. Cases that have arisen under the laws of other Countries would not be interpreted as setting a precedent under UK Law. The above notwithstanding, the following acts and statutes apply to the Cornwall Family History Society data:-
- The Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 (c. 48)
- The Copyright (Application to Other Countries) Order 1999
- Statutory Instrument 1997 No. 3032
- The Copyright and Rights in Databases Regulations 1997
These allow for use of the data for personal purposes or as part of an academic work, providing adherance to the following is observed:-
- Only a ‘reasonable’ amount of data is copied or quoted. The definition of ‘reasonable’ is difficult but on legal advice, we feel that any more than 5% of an individual publication would be considered to be ‘more than reasonable’. However, the quality, as well as the quantity of the information should be considered. In essence the rule of thumb would be ‘no more is taken than is necessary’.
- The original source or sources should be acknowledged.
- No payment may be accepted for any data or information provided.
- No damage to the provision of the data or information by the copyright holder, of the copied work, is caused by improper use of copied data.
To clarify the above as it applies to the Cornwall Family History Society, we would consider taking action against anyone who copied in any form, electronic or other, and made our data available as their own or as a service to others in excess of a ‘reasonable’ amount. Anyone who transcribes from the original source and not from our indexes or transcriptions is, of course, not subject to the Cornwall Family History Society copyright but may be subject to copyright from other organisations or individuals.
Exceptions to any of the above may be allowed by the Cornwall Family History Society on receipt of a written or electronic request. The Cornwall Family History Society would consider taking action against anyone who obtained payment in any form of currency, barter or exchange for the provision of our data. Professional researchers may, of course, charge for their services in researching an individual’s family tree but the data obtained from a Cornwall Family History Society data service should not be provided directly as part of the research. However the data can be used by the researcher as a demonstration of their expertise and experience in knowing the field and to point towards the original source.
The provision of the data by the Cornwall Family History Society must not be damaged or compromised by the provision of data by a third party, i.e. a lookup service. The Cornwall Family History Society will retain the right, until rescinded by the Cornwall Family History Society, to publish their data for remuneration or for free and this right must not be damaged or infringed.
Full Copyright Statement
© The source data for this information may be subject to other copyrights. The data you are receiving is from a source copyright to the Cornwall FHS. You may only use this information for personal purposes or as part of a written or academic work; any other use must be cleared through the Cornwall FHS. It is suggested that you check the original source of the data or check with the Cornwall FHS who may have additional information over and above that provided in the index.
Future publications from the Cornwall FHS, particularly those on electronic media, MAY contain a licence agreement that EXTENDS or LIMITS the above and any breach of the licence may be a breach of law, even if not a direct breach of copyright.
Cornwall FHS accepts no responsibility for errors or omissions in the data provided.
Cornwall FHS address and contact details can be found at https://www.cornwallfhs.com
Short Copyright Statement
© The data you are receiving is copyright to the Cornwall Family History Society (Cornwall FHS).
You MUST visit our Copyright page at https://www.cornwallfhs.com to view or request a copy of the Full Copyright Statement.
Cornwall FHS accepts no responsibility for errors or omissions in the data provided.
The above information may be disseminated to anyone who has a similar interest in our data providing that it is copied in full.
Thank you for your co-operation in making our data more readily available. If you have any questions please contact the Chairman.