Q: Are newspapers / U. S. Censuses published before January 1, 1929, on microfilm in the public domain and free to use?
I am writing a history book for publication about people in my hometown who lived in the late 1800s. Since newspapers don’t exist anymore from that time, my two choices are either microfilm at my local library or websites that have digitized newspapers. Both options are nothing more than exact copies of the original newspapers with no changes to them.
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The websites are claiming copyright and ownership of these public domain newspapers, including death and marriage records, and the U. S. Censuses. They placed restrictions that you can not use anything from their site except a personal copy. This includes items that can not be copyrighted like names, titles, and short phrases. I thought public domain meant no one owned them and no restrictions could placed on them.
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Are the microfilm versions of these newspapers in the public domain something I could use for my book I hope to have published?
A:
Yes, newspapers and U.S. Censuses published before January 1, 1929, are generally considered to be in the public domain in the United States and are free to use without restriction.
According to U.S. copyright law, works published before 1929 have fallen into the public domain due to copyright expiration. This means that no one owns the exclusive rights to these works, and they can be freely used, reproduced, and distributed by anyone without seeking permission or paying royalties.
Websites that have digitized these public domain newspapers and censuses do not have the right to claim copyright over the original content. However, they may be able to claim copyright on any additional features or improvements they have made, such as searchable databases, transcriptions, or user interfaces. Still, this does not give them the right to restrict the use of the public domain content itself.
Therefore, you can use the microfilm versions of the pre-1929 newspapers and censuses for your book without infringing on any copyrights. You are free to reproduce, quote from, and distribute this content as you see fit. However, it's always a good practice to properly attribute the sources you use in your work.
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