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I got's a question for Administrator or anyone else in that group of people who run city-data that I would appreciate input on.
I have started a blog here which has been very fulfilling so far. Given that I might want to write a book someday, containing some of my blog entries, I am wondering about who owns the copyright on my entries and/or the comments to my entries that I or others might make?
Do I retain all ownership and rights in what I write anywhere on my blog and can I likewise use anyone's comments to my blog in a future book?
What can city-data do with my blog entries?
Any input on the above questions would be appreciated. I did several searches at city-data to try and find threads where this was discussed and came up empty.
You own the copyrights to all your posts. So, you can republish them in a book or wherever else you'd like. By publishing your blog here, you give us rights to republish your posts, but we don't own the copyrights.
US Copyright law is thorny. You cannot copyright primary source. Primary source is church records, land records, deeds, Wills, birth, death, marriage records, letters, newspaper articles, and family records in a bible..
What you can copyright is how you present your contents regardless of how it is published. If I copy an article you wrote, word for word and published it wouthout your express written permission, I broke the law. And there is a really fine line about citing work that is over a hundred years old, that has been replublished and copyrighted. And you have to be doubly careful when citing foreign authors, for US copyright law applies to that material as if it were published in the US. I'm having great fun with a Dutch thesis that was unpublished and the copyright expired in 1994 in the Kingdom of Netherland and republished twice in US genealogy threads. Be careful. Those toes you step on can be expensive.
If you are going to publish serious stuff you need a publisher who understands copyright
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