[or-roots] Historical maps - 1851 Willamette Valley

[LinLouVan at aol.com]

In a message dated 8/24/2008 8:30:48 A.M. Pacific Daylight Time,  
rayp6217 at comcast.net writes:

For  myself, I do not plan to publish anything, but as for the possible copy 
of the  1851 map for another lister, I can find no original copyright holder 
to  contact. What little I know (or think I know) about copyright law, would  
indicate that the map, itself, has become public domain even if it was  
originally copyrighted. If anyone has any further info oncopyright and the  length of 
time a copyright lasts and if and how many times it can be renewed,  I think 
it would be pertinent to Oregon genealogy as all of us are always  making 
photocopies of pictures and documents for our research and a few even  plan to 
publish their work.


As I understood the original requester, it was for a photocopy of a map  from 
a copyrighted book.
Even though the map itself might have been a government map and in the  
public domain, the book
itself (or that particular compilation of maps) was copyrighted. That  
copyright would last 50 years 
past the author's death -- or 75 years, unless renewed.
 
The other thing the original requester stated was that this was to go into  a 
work that is being
published. There is where the care needs to be taken. Copying a single page  
from a book for one's
personal genealogy (with proper citations) is usually classed as "fair  use". 
However, publishing
is quite another thing.
 
I am certainly not a copyright authority, but I do have at my genealogy  desk 
a copy of "The Copyright
Handbook, How to protect & Use Written Works" by attorney Stephen  Fishman, 
Fourth Edition published in 1997.
 
Recently in our community, there was interest in using a lithographed fair  
poster from a 1914 event,
altering the image and using it as new. I just happened to see that it  
originally came from Fair
Publishing Co., went on line and found that the company started in 1880 and  
has been continuously
in business since that time. I contacted them and, indeed they still own  the 
rights to that lithographed
image. They would reproduce and sell it to us again, but we could not  
reproduce and alter it.
 
Linda VanOrden



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