Wholesale use of copyright material in bio

Question

I recently adopted the profile of Mason Combs. While I often refer to the Combs-Coombs &c website when working on this family, I do not copy material from there. The person who created the page for Mason Combs simply copied the entire text for him from that site. What do I do with it now? Delete it entirely? Keep some and cite the rest? Write my own bio and cite sources, including Combs-Coombs &c?

Comments

I'd say that either of the last two options would be good; I think which one depends mostly on how much time you have. What I do when faced with such a situation is to edit the copy/paste down to facts and a couple of interesting tidbits & then refer back to where it was copied from (in this case, the Combs-Coombs &c website) for source citations, details, and additional information. Cheers, Liz

Answer 1

Write your own bio and cite sources,

I like to think that at wikitree, we are better genealogists, who don't have to copy/paste from other websites. Especially since those websites are frequently unsourced.

Answer 2

Is this Combs-795?  The copyright law allows for "fair use" of a limited amount of copyrighted material without having to seek permission.  I won't opine on whether that entire entry qualifies (that's what courts do); but it is lengthy and would take a lot of time to edit.  My suggestion is to add a citation for the source and leave it alone.  Now, if you were starting fresh on a different profile, Liz's suggestion is good.  It is not wrong to copy copyrighted material; it is wrong to do so without attribution (so that a reader can go to the source and evaluate the quality of the material).

Comments

As has been discussed elsewhere on these forums, copyright varies from place to place, but I am fairly sure that copying the entirety of anything is against copyright law.  The general law seems to be 10%.

Answer 3

Shirley, this issue is covered in this part of the Style Guide:

http://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Copying_Text

bottom line: such copying is a no-no.