Gravestone Photo Project

I really like this Gravestone Photo Project http://gpp.jlconsulting.com/ . I have found headstones or transcriptions here not found on some of the larger headstone databases. Also the women can be listed as married & maiden name, which really helps. The only thing I don’t like if you make a mistake after you upload a photo you have to contact the Webmaster to make changes.

One thing to remember if you want to add an image, do your editing before uploading. The built in editing in the program doesn’t do a very good job. The first time I uploaded some pictures they were too big & they ended up almost unreadable. Make sure the longest side of the image is no more than 450 pixels & make sure the file size is between 20-40 kb. Here are some tips for editing photographs of grave markers for the Gravestones Photograph Project http://www.sampubco.com/gpp/crop.htm .

The following states are currently using a version of the Gravestone Photo Project software:

• Arizona Gravestones
• Colorado Gravestones
• Illinois Gravestones
• Iowa Gravestones
• Maryland Gravestones
• Maine Gravestones
• Nebraska Gravestones
• New Brunswick Gravestones (Canada)
• New Mexico Gravestones
• New York Gravestones
• Ohio Gravestones
• Oregon Gravestones
• Pennsylvania Gravestones
• Virginia Gravestones
• Utah Gravestones

Copyrights In The Public Domain

I have been seeing copyrights on lot of microfilms & digital images where the original documents were published before 1923. So I set out to find out how they could copyright a public domain document.

First stop was to see what I could find out about copyrights as it applies to Public Domain. The only thing I could find was Bridgeman Art Library v. Corel Corp. But I couldn’t figure out if it was dismissed due to “Fair Use” or because the reproductions involved no originality.

Then a kind Professor of Law put this topic in terms I could understand, “The content is not copyrighted and there is debate about even the image”.

Finally a response from the Library of Congress “Merely reformatting a work is not considered copyrightable authorship. There would have to be the addition of an appreciable amount of original copyrightable matter in order to support a claim to copyright, and, even then, the copyright would not extend to the public domain matter”.

We need to see these people putting on these copyrights as supplying us great service, and we shouldn’t copy their entire works to resell. But we should not have to feel like criminals sharing bits & pieces.

This article is not intended to define the law, but only to report my experiences.