Wikipedia talk:WikiProject U.S. Congress/Bioguide

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[edit] Bioguide, find a grave pics

Are the pictures from Biographical Directory of the United States Congress and from the sight Find A Grave copyrighted? What if they are before 1921 or whatever year the fair use copyright thing went into effect? Could we just copy them over? I want to add some pictures to Nebraska senators, but don't know if the images are copyrighted.--Rayc 03:08, 12 January 2006 (UTC)

  • Rayc, it is my understanding that if it is on a federal government website, then it is in the public domain unless otherwise specified. NOTE...if it is on a state government website, then you have to go by individual state law, as most of their images are not in the public domain. As far as the bio guide...because it is a federal government resource, they are public domain and free to use on wikipedia as long as they are not specifically marked as copyrighted to another person or organization. --ScottyBoy900Q∞ 05:38, 12 January 2006 (UTC)
    • Well, sort of. If the image was produced by a Federal Government employee in accordance with his duties, then it's public domain. So most photos on Government websites are PD. But sometimes a government website will display images that are copyrighted by someone else. On the bioguide, I've seen images with a small (c) at the bottom, although I have no idea if the image is really copyrighted or not. Very troubling. – Quadell (talk) (bounties) 00:05, 2 February 2006 (UTC)
    • Oh, by the way, if a photo was first published in 1922 or earlier, it can be tagged {{PD-US}} no matter what. So a photo of a Senators who died in 1915 is absolutely in the public domain. – Quadell (talk) (bounties) 00:06, 2 February 2006 (UTC)
      • Never know. Might've dug up the corpses to take pics. :D --Mathwizard1232 00:23, 14 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Copyright?

The Bioguide has a copyright page: [1]. I was somewhat surprised to see that it did not explicitly say that the text is free-to-copy. Can someone put a link to an authoritative statement that the text is free-to-copy into the article here, so that us foreigners who don't know US copyright law by heart can refer to it and be calmed? --Alvestrand 09:02, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

The bioguide does not say that the text is free to use. But then again, they don't have to say it; no work of the United States Government can be copyrighted, and all text on that site is a work of the U.S. Government. I guess the closest I give you to a simple, declarative statement is this. If you want more detail, see this, but now you're delving deep into the pit of U.S. Copyright law. I guess you can either trust us -- it's copyright-free -- or you can do the research yourself and discover that it's copyright-free. All the best, – Quadell (talk) (bounties) 16:08, 26 February 2006 (UTC)
Ditto what Quadell said. And I might point out that the copyright notice applies only to the "images" in the site, not the text (and even then, it only says that not all of the images are in the public domain). The text has no copyright restrictions. older ≠ wiser 16:55, 26 February 2006 (UTC)
Thanks - although the 2 links were the same, they emphasize the point. Is it safe to assume that everything under "congress.gov" is a work of the US government? (I've got scars from different parts of this battlefield...) --Alvestrand 18:49, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Template not working?

I went to the page for Chris Cox former R-CA, and the link doesn't work, it points at "http://bioguide.congress.gov/scripts/biodisplay.pl?index={{{1}}}". Is the template broken or is it missing a parameter? --AW 22:33, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

  • Fixed!--G1076 16:44, 14 December 2006 (UTC)
Thanks! --AW 16:57, 14 December 2006 (UTC)
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