{"id":5636,"date":"2017-10-27T15:56:31","date_gmt":"2017-10-27T15:56:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rootdig.genealogytipoftheday.com\/?p=5636"},"modified":"2017-10-27T15:56:31","modified_gmt":"2017-10-27T15:56:31","slug":"can-i-copyright-paper-neighbors","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rootdig.genealogytipoftheday.com\/?p=5636","title":{"rendered":"Can I Copyright “Paper Neighbors?”"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>I like the phrase “paper neighbors<\/a>” because I think it emphasizes an important point about records that people sometimes forget.<\/p>\n

But can I copyright that phrase? Can I copyright that idea?<\/p>\n

The answers are “no” and “no.”<\/p>\n

Other people are free to use the idea without indicating where or how they heard about it. I can’t stop that. I can’t copyright that short phrase and I can’t copyright the idea. Phrases can be trademarked–I’m not going to that expense–and ideas can be patented, but “paper neighbors” doesn’t qualify for that either.<\/p>\n

I do have copyright to the blog post<\/a> I wrote about the concept.<\/p>\n

So if you like the concept, share it. We’d really appreciate it if you let people know where you heard about it.<\/p>\n

If you share the blog post<\/a>–link to it (https:\/\/rootdig.genealogytipoftheday.com\/?p=5621). But don’t copy and paste it and strip my name from it. That’s a violation of copyright.<\/p>\n

And it’s also lying to suggest that you wrote it, but that’s another story.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I like the phrase “paper neighbors” because I think it emphasizes an important point about records that people sometimes forget. But can I copyright that phrase? Can I copyright that idea? The answers are “no” and “no.” Other people are free to use the idea without indicating where or how they heard about it. I […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5636","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rootdig.genealogytipoftheday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5636","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rootdig.genealogytipoftheday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rootdig.genealogytipoftheday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rootdig.genealogytipoftheday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rootdig.genealogytipoftheday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5636"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/rootdig.genealogytipoftheday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5636\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rootdig.genealogytipoftheday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5636"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rootdig.genealogytipoftheday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5636"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rootdig.genealogytipoftheday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5636"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}