The question of what is copyrighted, and what it means to be copyrighted, is very important.  It has always been my intention to provide the genealogy information on my web page freely, for anyone who is interested in that information.  Everything that appears on my web pages is copyrighted, but I freely give this information to anyone who wants it, as long as they agree to the conditions I impose: that they not charge anyone for the material, and that they not give it to any organization that will in turn charge anyone for the information.

Copying  information from my web pages to be transferred to a CD and offered for sale is clearly a violation of the copyright. Anyone interested in reading more about copyright may wish to visit one of these web sites:

http://www.benedict.com/contents.htm
http://www.templetons.com/brad//copymyths.html

I would like to ask any users of the material from these web pages, to please advise me if anyone ever offers to “sell” you some or all of the information contained on these pages.  This information is simply NOT FOR SALE. It is for the free use of anyone who needs it. However, it is NOT in the “Public Domain”. Material in the Public Domain may be taken by anyone, and sold by them if they are able to find someone willing to buy it. This is why I DO NOT place my genealogy information in the Public Domain.

I hope this explanation helps those of you with concerns about this material being copyrighted to understand that by copyrighting the material, I am in fact protecting it for the use by all.

Fran LaChance
[email protected]