What documents are not allowed to be posted?

Question

Is there a list of items that can or can not be attached to profiles?  For example I have a few Marriage records from Scotlands people, can they be posted as a photo?  Or is it better just to write out the info in the profile?  Thanks...I'm fairly new to Wikipedia.

Answer 1

I don't think there's a list anywhere.  The answer depends on the protections and controls that are associated with the items at the place where you found them.  In the U.S. that typically means we can't post copyrighted material, and we can't post records found on other web sites if the terms of service of that web site prohibit it.  Normally it's OK to transcribe factual data found in such records and include that in profiles, along with identification and location of the source where you found it.  And FYI, this is not Wikipedia, and I don't know whether their rules are the same as WikiTree's.

Comments

Anonymous mentioned Scotland's People in particular. Information has been received from there that each individual member of WikiTree may upload up to 20 images. See

https://www.wikitree.com/g2g/917088/scotlands-people-copyright-issues?show=917091#c917091

This has been disputed, though not in my view refuted. See

https://www.wikitree.com/g2g/1631132/how-to-access-scottish-records?show=1631539#c1631539

People should make up their own minds. As I said in the second thread, rather than uploading images, personally I prefer to use a transcription. There do not seem to be any objections to that.

Answer 2

It is much better to write out the information from an image, so people don't have to look at an image to see what is there. 

All sites have a Terms and Use section that will refer to whether images can be re-published on another site. 

Scotland Project has stated over and over that they do not think Scotlands People images should be posted to Wikitree because of the Crown Copyright. They have a Sources Help page with recommended citation examples.  

Crown Copyright states the following:

• Permitted Use 
  • Visitors are granted permission to download and make copies of downloaded material, provided activities and copies are for non-commercial private study and research only
• Restricted use
  • Individuals and organisation can use up to a maximum or 20 Crown Copyright images for the following purposes, without the need for permission
    • Boook, journal, magazine, newspaper, publication, broadcast
    • Online use limited to a maximum of 20 images per website
    • Display / exhibition / talk / presentation

Permitted Use 

• Wikitree is a commercial site and research is not for private study. 

Restricted Use

• There are more than 20 images already posted to Wikitree that the project is constantly requesting people to remove. 

Jim's response has links to some previous G2G responses. He did not include one response received in 2018 where it was stated (bold is by me)

• There are two types of images on the ScotlandsPeople site: images of records in or possibly out of private copyright (such as Roman Catholic registers), and images in or out of Crown copyright.
  
  In terms of the private copyright images, an archive, like the National; Records of Scotland (NRS), researcher needs to obtain permission from the copyright owner (and usually from the owner of the original item - the two are often different), or take the risk of a potential breach of copyright action.
• Once you open up access to your copies of the images to a few or to many people, this constitutes publication; a re-use of the images beyond the purposes of personal research that you acquired them for.
• Requests to use a number greater than 20 can be accommodated, especially if publication/display is for a limited period and for a restricted number of people.
• We ensure that they are all genuinely in Crown copyright and no private copyright is likely to be infringed
• Large scale re-use of images, for commercial, educational or other purposes, is still normally dealt with by licensing.

Ancestry has similar restrictions in their Terms and Conditions, which are also not followed by many on Wikitree

• Ancestry Content
  • To use the Ancestry Content only as necessary for your personal use of the Services or your professional family history research;
  • Not to distribute, republish, or sell significant portions of any Ancestry Content; ,
  • To contact us to obtain our written permission if you want to use more than a small portion of individual photos and documents that are Public Domain Content.

Family Search has similar restrictions on publishing images 

Contracts between the original record custodian and FamilySearch govern nearly all of the records within the collections on FamilySearch.
 
For most contracts, FamilySearch acquires rights for you to use the records merely for incidental, personal, noncommercial genealogical research purposes. Your rights include the ability to extract factual data about your direct family line. You can put that data into your personal family tree.

Contracts prohibit the publication or distribution of the actual record images or documents (including through print or the web).

You must have written permission from the custodian of the original records before you publish an image of a record or document. 

Comments

The one I cite is dated 30 September 2019. It updates and supersedes anything received in 2018.

Scotland's People have given each of our members written permission to upload up to 20 images from their site to here. It is contrary to the interests of WikiTreers to argue against this.

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2019 does not update or supercede the 2018 version.  That is a different person's version. Scotlands People has not given 'each of us' written permission.  Their Terms of Use has not changed.  

What the Project Leaders decision is on a Project should have some bearing on what is accepted or not.  

This is not unique to Scotlands People.  Ancestry and Family Search also say the same thing.  Images on their sites should not be uploaded to another website without written permission from them. Each of the sites does not 'own' all images seen on their sites.  That is very clearly stated on each site, stating that permission may need to be received from the owner of the image, which is not the site you are seeing it on.

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Linda, what is your purpose or motive in disputing that the replies which Vivian elicited give clear written permission to each WikiTree member to post up to 20 images? What Simon Johnson wrote is perfectly plain and easy to understand. This is a wonderful and beneficial result to Vivian Egan's enquires, helpful to any WikiTree member who would like to take advantage of it. Why attempt to deny it? I am bewildered that you are arguing against WikiTree members' interests.

As for what projects decide, they are merely guidelines, not WikiTree rules, because they have not been developed under the process for new rules.

I agree with you about the terms of service of other sites. But Scotland's People is different: it has given us explicit and particular written permission. What you quoted said "Individuals and organisation can use up to a maximum or 20 Crown Copyright images for the following purposes, without the need for permission." But permission has been given to us, beyond those standard conditions. Permission was needed, and Vivian obtained it for us. Please don't try to destroy her achievement.

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One of the Project Leaders has written to Scotlands People to get their current opinion.  Since people have to pay for the images, they are not free like family search.  It does not make sense that the site would want them to be freely distributed.

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Linda, you have not answered my question about purpose. It's incomprehensible to me why anyone in WikiTree would try to reverse Vivian's good work. It's Scotland's People's responsibility to look after their own interests, and when they provide something beneficial to us, we should accept it gratefully. What makes sense to them is up to them, not us, and Simon Johnson would have taken that into account when he wrote his generous messages.

If what you say is correct, it is not a good demonstration of the Project's respect for the interests of WikiTree members. It would be better if Project Leaders entered the discussion here directly and presented an explanation of the reasons behind such an intervention.

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Hi Jim.  This is me, entering the discussion to explain the reasoning behind my request for guidance from Scotland's People.  I'm sorry that I was not able to do so earlier, but I've been busy with other things.

Scotland's People is a government run website.  The record images belong to the government of Scotland.  That in itself is reason enough to reach out to them and request current opinion.

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@Jim, I am one of the Scotland Project Co-Leaders. This is my PERSONAL view, not the view of the project as a whole.  The reply to Vivian stated 

Apologies for any ambiguity in my previous response. Yes, the '20 images' rule is per individual user, so each WikiTree user could upload up to 20 Crown copyright images from ScotlandsPeople to the website, with appropriate acknowledgement.

Do you expect the Scotland Project leaders to monitor the number of ScotlandsPeople images uploaded by every single member of the project (currently ~175 members/ 4 co-leaders) or the number of images uploaded to any profile with Scottish connections (currently ~750,000 profiles)? Not to do so, and to possibly be seen to be condoning a breach of the ScotlandsPeople terms and conditions, would risk the reputation of WikiTree as a whole.

The current Project recommendation, that members extract the relevant information and provide a complete citation, is I think a reasonable compromise between providing as much information as possible and the possibility of WikiTree being seen as condoning a breach of the ScotlandsPeople website's terms and conditions.

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Thank you Amy and Sheena for responding.

No, I do not expect the Scotland Project to monitor or police members. That is not its role. Under the Honor Code we trust members not to make deliberate mistakes. They do not need policing. It is their individual responsibility to follow the conditions Scotland's People have generously provided.

All the Project needs to do is to draw attention to the terms that Simon Johnson gave, in particular the 20-image limit, by making them prominently visible on a suitable project page. You will then have fulfilled your own responsibility. The rest is up to each member.

This is not about the terms and conditions on the website. It is about the special additional written permission that has been given, above and beyond the standard terms. Providing transcriptions is a good approach, but members who wish to use up to 20 images instead, or better still as well, are free to do so.

The Project should allow members to take advantage of the great opportunity that Vivian Egan organised for them, not stand in their way.