Prohibited Content

Prohibited Content

Content That Is Protected By Copyright

We strictly adhere to US Copyright Law and respect the rights to the creator’s intellectual and creative properties, therefore we will not copy, transfer, duplicate or digitize, without written permission of the rights holder. This may include:

  • Recorded TV or studio movies
  • Commercially copyrighted materials
  • Photographs that the photographer has retained the rights to
  • Video, audio, or printed materials published or recorded after 1924 that are protected by copyright, and you have not received written permission of the rights holder.
Objectionable Content

Any material of “adult nature” including nudity or pornography, materials promoting hate, racism, sexism, or other materials considered to be obscene or objectionable

Personally Identifiable Information

We also request that you add no personally identifiable information that could potentially be used to identify a particular living person. Examples include Social Security numbers, driver's license number, bank account number, passport number, telephone numbers or email address.

Some guidelines:
  • Assume an individual is living unless there is documentation available that demonstrates they are dead, or their date of birth is greater than 110 years ago. Avoid using any associated personally identifiable information for living individuals.
  • Generally the following should not be made available online: information on students, medical records, trade secrets, criminal files,
  • When it comes to records, use the “72 Year Rule”. Avoid including personally identifiable information about an individual to any other individual or agency until 72 years after it was collected for the decennial census. This "72-Year Rule" restricts access to decennial census records to all but the individual named on the record or their legal heir.
  • Across most U.S. states, birth records are restricted from public access. In selected states or jurisdictions, birth records are closed until specified periods have elapsed; this may range from 25-100 years. Please research your state’s law on your ability to make these available online.
  • In most U.S states, marriage records are public information. However, U.S. public record laws prohibit the dissemination of identifying information to members of the public. As such, public marriage records often exclude sensitive information pertaining to the registrants including birth dates, current addresses, and social security information.
  • Divorce records are usually public information unless otherwise deemed by a court. Like marriage records, there are also restrictions on the information available to the public.
  • More often than not, death records are open to the public
  • Generally, records created by employees of the Federal government as part of their routine duties, works for hire created under contract to the Federal government, and publications produced by the Federal government are all in the public domain.

A good resource for determining what records you can use is the Reporters Committee For Freedom Of The Press. They have created the Open Government Guide and can be found here: https://www.rcfp.org/open-government-guide/. This Guide is a complete compendium of information on every state’s open records and open meetings laws.

We reserve the right to remove any content at our sole discretion which we discover or has brought to our attention to be inappropriate or violate the rights of others.

If you send us original materials we cannot digitize in accordance with US Copyright and international copyright laws, or content we find to be objectionable, we will issue a credit for those materials, which can be applied to a future order, allowing you to add more materials to your archive, or it can be applied to your "My History Archive" subscription.