[Opengenalliance] Opengenalliance Digest, Vol 32, Issue 1

[Tom Hughes]

On 04/12/16 10:23, Ben Laurie wrote:

> On 4 December 2016 at 01:17, Asparagirl <asparagirl at dca.net> wrote:
>
>> ...to learn more about the kind of work we do, using Freedom of
>> Information laws to force the release of "unavailable" genealogical
>> records back to the public.  We've won settlements in two different
>> lawsuits in New York in 2015 and earlier this year (and won attorneys
>> fees the second time), and we just filed a new one in Missouri, under
>> their state's Sunshine Law.
>
> Cool. Any views on whether the same tactic would work in the UK?

Well the problem in the UK would be that while a FOIA request might get 
the requester access to to something it wouldn't allow them to 
distribute it to anybody else as copyright would still be engaged.

It's kind of ridiculous because obviously if they're given it to one 
person making a request they will presumably have to give it to anybody 
else that makes a request but there you go...

Of course the main BMD data (the certificates) would be exempt anyway on 
the basis that it's already available on payment of the prescribed fee 
for a certificate.

It would nice for somebody to get their hands on the new indexes that 
the GRO have created though and put a better search engine around them 
as they have useful information (full name of child and maiden name of 
mother for births) that is not in the traditional paper indexes.

Tom

-- 
Tom Hughes (tom at compton.nu)
http://compton.nu/