Re: Find Out Anything! Sort of.

On Mon, 24 Sep 2007 11:41:51 +0100, "Roy Stockdill"
<roy.stockdill@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

From: Charles Ellson <charles@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>

I have always, and will always, take the line that the basic data is
public domain anyway and it is wrong to censor data in any way.

The basic data are disparate. What the law tends to control is
assembled and/or accumulated data which is generally not in the public
domain.>

But, surely, an accumulation of information collected entirely from the
public domain must remain "public domain data", however clever the
compiler is at fitting it together! Where do you draw the line and say that it
is no longer in the public domain!

To take an example.....

If I discover someone's birth date by buying their certificate, which gives
me the names of both parents, I can then find the parents' marriage and
from that the grandparents, etc. If I then find the grandparents on the
1901 census as children this will give me the great-grandparents, and so
on. Bingo - I've got a 4-generation family tree, all obtained perfectly
legally from public domain sources! Are you seriously saying this is no
longer public domain data because I've fitted it together? I simply don't
believe it - it's what we all do all the time!

I see constantly all the time in newspapers and magazines family trees of
some famous living individual where, clearly, permission to publish has
not been sought or obtained. When I do celebrity family trees for
Practical Family History it is always with complete co-operation from the
subject, so there's no problem there. However, I've never yet heard of the
Information Commissioner prosecuting a newspaper for publishing the
family tree of a living individual without their permission and I don't
believe it would happen.

Frankly, I am amazed that genealogists should even think about arguing
in favour of censorship.

It's a case of "it's not what you've got but what you do with it".
Just as facts can be presented in a way which is libellous, it is
possible for the same genealogical data to be collected by two people
but with very different presentation, usage and intent. While the
basic data are in the public domain that is often not the case with
assembled data and the law would appear to be capable of being used
against holders of such assembled data if they can't demonstrate that
their usage is exempt. Maybe it won't be too long before a private
individual is prosecuted for blatant misuse of data if that is the
only charge that can be made to stick where it is used for harrassment
or similar purposes.
.

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