I read with much interest the article in the February 2000 edition of the Genealogy Forum NEWS entitled Restoring Ethics to Genealogy by Barbara A. Brown. Her incisive article concerns itself in part with the number of people who take material from the Internet and believe it is, as she puts it, "permissible to publish it online it as long as you display it in another format."

There has been a lot of interest in the subject of plagiarism and copyright infringement lately. While teaching undergraduates at a university here in Florida, I was disappointed to encounter any number of examples of students plagiarizing from one another and from the Internet. Not only is this a violation of university policy and a serious honor code violation, but plagiarism from print sources or from the Internet also is a criminal act in violation of U.S. and international copyright laws.

As the author of the weekly Internet column, "Along Those Lines ...," magazine and journal articles, newsletters, a book, presentations, and materials at my Web site, I am acutely aware of the need to protect my intellectual property with copyright notices. The inclusion of a copyright notice on everything I create does not automatically protect me against the blatant thievery of my materials which may, in fact, rob me of financial revenue.

There is an unfortunate and incorrect belief that anything on the Internet is, as Ms. Brown so accurately stated, "public domain" for the copying. There is a whole new body of law developing related to Internet copyright and trademark infringement/violation. The courts and juries have set any number of legal precedents by ruling against the criminals who violate these laws, by assessing larges fines and penalties against them, and by ruling in favor of plaintiffs and granting substantial financial awards to them.

I can personally identify with Ms. Brown's experiences in which her "I Want" article was reprinted many times without her permission. In recent months I have had two significant instances of copyright infringement occur with my "Along Those Lines ..." column content. In one case, a column was reprinted without my permission but was done so in its entirety and included the copyright block. In that case, I asked for and received a public apology and payment for the use of the column. In the other case, a portion of one of my columns was plagiarized at a very public Web site and propagated into a subscription newsletter. In that case, I demanded and received a public apology in the same venue, a change of attribution on the article to indicate that I am the author of most of the content, and the termination of the writer.

I have recently learned of other cases of plagiarism and copyright infringement in the genealogy community, including the copying of written articles from a major magazine, copying of articles from an online newsletter, redistribution of materials from newsletters prohibiting such redistribution in mailing lists, the copying and reuse of an original graphic on a Web page, and the plagiarism of materials from one person's Web site onto another person's site and represented as having been original material produced by the second person. In every single case, copyright notices were prominently displayed on each document, newsletter, graphic or Web page that were impossible to overlook. The fact that one genealogist would do such a thing to another appalls and saddens me more than I can tell you.

It is important that people understand that copyright laws empower those of us who work long hours creating original material and Web sites to legally protect the fruits of our labors. The unethical people who violate these copyright and trademark law are criminals, and should be treated as the criminals they are. They should be exposed, arrested and prosecuted for their dishonesty to the fullest extent of the law.

I urge anyone interested in fully understanding U.S. copyright law to visit the Web site of the United States Copyright Office at the Library of Congress Web site (http://www.loc.gov/copyright). My advice to anyone who has any question whatsoever about whether they can or should copy an printed article, material published on the Internet, or contents on a Web page, whether it is accompanied by a copyright notice or not, is that they should always err on the right and safe side. Contact the author and ask his or her permission. Otherwise, you may risk the consequences of prosecution for violation of copyright laws.

Thank you for your excellent work on the Genealogy Forum NEWS, and for allowing me to share my perspective on this issue.

Sincerely,
George G. Morgan