Posted on 02/09/2013 4:26:08 PM PST by FoxPro
Can I take a death notice, which would be name, date of death and optionally general location, birth-date and place it on a website, I own, from another website?
Example:
Joe Smith died February 9, 2013, age 84 in Miami, Florida.
How about a whole list of these?
From one source or multiple sources?
Is this news?
Would this carry a copyright?
Is this not "fair use"?
Would a birth be news also?
I cant find anything written about this and was wondering what the smartest people in the world thought of it, legally and ethically.
It seems like fair use to me. If there was a long obit written by a loved-one though, that could be a copyright issue... what you described seems like general info
The only legal advice I can give you is, do not solicit legal advice on the internet.
I have looked into the obit thing and apparently that is in legal limbo because:
1) It depends on who wrote the obit, the family, the funeral home or a newspaper.
2) This hasn’t reached the Supreme Court yet.
..perhaps if you posted a link to the original at the end of your posting it would help. If the originating post explicitly states copy rights are in effect...
I don't consider Freerepublic.com "the internet".
That is interesting!
But the name and date and stuff, that’s public info right?
Well said! I heartily concur!
As for the obit, it probably depends on the policy of the originating website. I would think you could at least post an excerpt with a link to the source.
A death is a public event, yes?
Like a fire, terrorist attack or the fact it snowed last night...
It is not prose or a work of art.
So it is news.
So it doesn’t matter what it was sourced from.
I have talked to lawyers about this, with mixed opinions.
Am I missing something here?
at least you have one guy who wont object
I think this is an open question and needs to be litigated.
I guess what I am trolling for is, has this ever come up in a courtroom anywhere?
If we've come to the point that your question is cause for worry, then we're dead anyway.
What you can do is use whatever ‘sharing’ options that website offers such as an RSS feed. That way you will be using the method they have approved to share their stories which should offer you some sort of protection.
But they are not sharing stories, they are sharing "news" and "facts" in whatever format and conveyance.
They still own the authorship. When you write an obituary, for example, and give it to your local news paper, it is usually spelled out in whatever submission process that you are granting them rights to that content.
You can say, the fact is XYZ died.
You can’t copy the obituary in full from the paper/site without some sort of permission.
Sure, you may have a technical argument, but you would spend thousands in court arguing that fact. Look at the Righthaven lawsuits. They ended up losing in the end, but not after they got tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands from websites and many sites spent many more thousands in legal fees fighting it.
It isn’t worth it. Just go with the cleanest legal route which is to use the paper’s approved sharing methods.
So it seems that this post wont get the interest that my “Miracle Whip” versus “Mayonnaise” post I had.
You can retype the information that would be publicly available on a death certificate.
Other information printed in another publication is probably held under their copyright.
Just don’t cut and paste..re-write it.
I don't either. It's like, it's like, well, it's like the neighbourhood dope dealer.
I think of FR as my local bar, with less drama. (Yes, I need to find a new bar).
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