Discussion:
What is the name of your state? Texas
No, I don't have some morbid fetish with cemeteries.
I am starting a website where I am going to catalog all of the cemeteries in the Dallas-Fort Worth/North Texas region. I am planning on offering the text inscriptions of every tombstone and marker for free online. But I was also thinking about selling a CD/DVD of all of the images of every tombstone and marker in the individual counties in the area. My question is if selling these pictures would be violating any type of copyright or other law. I have found individual images online before, but I am planning on selling an image as well as the inscriptions of every single stone and marker in every single cemetery in the county(ies). Since the land that the marker is located on is usually owned by the individual/family and not usually the cemetery, would there be any issues selling this?
Any infold be appreciated.
Answer:
I have found individual images online before, but I am planning on selling an image as well as the inscriptions of every single stone and marker in every single cemetery in the county(ies). As long as you take the pictures yourself, or otherwise have permission to use and resell the pictures, there is no problem with respect to selling the pictures.
Since the land that the marker is located on is usually owned by the individual/family and not usually the cemetery, would there be any issues selling this? If the pictures are taken from a vantage point that is accessible to the public, then there are no issues associated with taking the pictures and doing with them what you please. If you need to enter a private cemetary (where access is restricted) or open up a crypt or something, then you'll need permission. But if you just go into a cemetary open to the public and take pictures, there is no problem.