Hi Tim -- 

I agree you need to contact the site owner for permission to use those accounts in your exhibit, for starters. They should be able to provide you with information about additional steps to take regarding any individual postings on their site.

Posting a reminiscence or comment on a web site, a blog, a facebook wall, etc. strikes me as akin to writing a letter to a newspaper rather than formally agreeing to participate in an oral history interview. In order to create usable oral histories there are a lot of i's to dot and t's to cross with regard to permissions and rights - interviewer, interviewee, transcriber, etc. That said, sending in the letter to the newspaper does not necessarily give away an individual's rights to that particular expression of their thoughts.

Whether or not you'd have to get permission to use the individual accounts would depend, I think, on what, if any, agreement that site has with people posting there.  However, if I were to post a message on a friend's facebook page, for example, it's reasonable to assume it's only going to be read by a limited audience. I'd be more than a bit perturbed to see the message show up in a museum's exhibit catalog, much as I would if my letter to the editor were reused in another publication without permission.

Keep in mind, though, that I'm not familiar with Canadian copyright laws or privacy laws and I'm not sure if the other replies to Museum-L have been made from a background in Canadian law.  Have you posted your query to any of the relevant Canadian listservs?  In the U.S. tricky copyright questions are often posted to the A&A listserv run by the Society of American Archivists, and there's also a an excellent blog related to library and archival copyright issues.  Both of these will result in replies based on U.S. law, though, not international or Canadian laws. 

Judy Turner
Whitefish Bay, WI

--- On Mon, 4/13/09, Timothy McShane <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

<snip>
 
> Has anyone used such on-line material as first-hand
> accounts in exhibits?  I'd be inclined to think the
> material is copyrighted by the web page, but is there any
> argument to be made that the individuals, by submitting
> these stories to such a "public" space, are in
> fact making their stories public domain?
>  
>  
>  
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> Tim McShane, Assistant--Cultural History
> Esplanade Museum
> 401 First Street SE
> Medicine Hat, AB   T1A 8W2
> Tel: (403) 502-8587
> [log in to unmask]




      

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