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Please do not add commercial links or links to your own private websites to Wikipedia. Wikipedia is not a vehicle for advertising or a mere collection of external links. You are, however, encouraged to add content instead of links to the encyclopedia. If you feel the link should be added to the article, then please discuss it on the article's talk page rather than re-adding it. See the welcome page to learn more about Wikipedia. Thanks.

Please stop adding commercial links to Wikipedia. It is considered spamming, and Wikipedia is not a vehicle for advertising. Thanks. - Jack (talk) 22:05, 25 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

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I'm curious as to your understanding of the legal issues involved in publishing these wills on the internet. I know that normally these would be filed in probate court, but is it still possible that there may be potential privacy issues arising from redistributing them in this manner? Also, aren't the documents protected by copyright? Thanks, Postdlf 23:01, 25 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

  • I understand the issues of privacy concerning the publishing of wills on the internet. However, it is well established that a will becomes a public document (and enters the public domain) when the Testator dies and the will is admitted to probate. Copyright laws do not protect documents that are in the public domain. That is, in fact, one of the arguments for a living trust; i.e., to avoid having personal information available to the public in the form of a Last Will and Testament. That is established law and, as a practicing estate-planning attorney for over 25 years, I am quite comfortable saying that no one has ever questioned the fact that a will is a public document that is not subject to copyright.

The wills published on our website have all been admitted to probate and are public documents. That is the only way we could obtain them. In fact, these same wills are already published on many other web sites, many of which are the web sites of law firms and legal document providers. If you google "famous wills," you will find that there are many, many sites publishing these wills.

My feeling is that Wikipedia already has a very good biography of the rich and famous people whose wills are publicly available on the internet. Our site tries to make information available to the public on all aspects of living trusts and estate planning. For some reason, people love to look at the wills of the rich and famous, so we've posted them on our site. We also want to give our visitors some background information on these people and, since Wikipedia does such a good job already, we feel it's better to send our visitors to your site rather than recreate the wheel. The reverse is true as well. Visitors to Wikipedia's bio on a rich and famous person often want the opportunity to view their will, so a link to our will page seems entirely appropriate, especially since we're not selling legal services or legal documents. In fact, there isn't even any advertising on those pages.

Of course, the decision to maintain a link to a person's last will and testament on Wikipedia's site is entirely up to Wikipedia. I would point out, however, that several biographies of rich and famous people on Wikipedia already have links to a last will and testament. One, for example, is the biography of Doris Duke, which has a link to her will on the web site of CourtTV.com.

So, I believe that the links we placed on Wikipedia are a good thing - they don't violate public policy or copyright laws and they provide good information for people who are interested in this material. In conclusion, I do hope that you all will reconsider and allow these links to exist. But, I have to tell you that I'm really impressed by this whole sytem the Wikipedia has in place and the people who have taken the time to insure the integrity of the Wikipedia format. Livingtrust 03:10, 27 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I'm personally in favor of keeping them. So these were all admitted to probate...could you please point me to the statutory provision or case law that establishes that they become public domain? Postdlf 04:50, 27 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • The issue is that the 1st Amendment has been held to guarantee access to court records by the public. Although the U.S. Supreme Court has not ruled on this issue, it is the rule of law in federal and state courts. The real issue is not whether court documents are open to the public, but whether confidential information contained in court documents can be withheld. This was not a major issue when a person had to travel to the court house to search through the records. However, now that court records are being stored electronically and access is available in electronic format, including the internet, the federal government and most state governments are struggling to balance an individual's right to privacy against these 1st Amendment rights. For a discussion of these rights, please see TMI - The First Amendment and the Media 1999 Online.

Despite the concern over privacy rights, it is clear that court documents and records are freely accessible to the public and, as such, are in the public domain. Accordingly, I respectfully request that you allow the Living Trust Network to provide a link to the wills of these famous people. The link would be contained in the "External Links" section of a famous person's biography on Wikipedia. Thanks. Livingtrust 19:47, 31 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

    • That TMI link unfortunately does not discuss the effect of these issues on copyright. Do you know of a resource that does, and that might analyze whether the right to access court records would trump copyright with regard to all uses or only certain uses? Postdlf 19:52, 31 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]


  • To say that the law regarding copyright is complex is an understatement. When combined with 1st Amendment rights in connection with court records, it becomes a nightmare. Still, it appears that there are some certainties in certain segments of the copyright laws.

First, it is not clear whether a will is published or unpublished. "Publication" seems to be based upon sale or public distribution, which is not the case generally with wills. However, the wills of famous individuals that are featured on our website, have been published on websites and in different books and magazines since the death of the respective testators. So, it seems clear that we are dealing with wills that have been "published" with respect to the copyright laws.

Whether published or unpublished, however, it is clear under current copyright laws (see 17 U.S.C. Sec. 301 et sig.) that the unpublished wills of anyone who died before 1936 and any wills published prior to 1923 are in the public domain today. The wills of Benjamin Franklin and George Washington (two of the wills on our site) are in that category and are free of any copyright restrictions.

Second, wills published between 1923 and 1977 without a copyright notice are now in the public domain and free of all copyright restrictions. See Copyright Term and the Public Domain in the United States. The following famous people died prior to 1977 and had their wills probated prior to 1977, with publication prior to that date: Walt Disney, John F. Kennedy, Marilyn Monroe, Elvis Presley, and Babe Ruth. These wills are also in the public domain as of this date. See 17 U.S.C. Sec 301 et sig.

Third, wills published between 1978 and March 1,1989, which were not subsequently registered with the Copyright Office, are now in the public domain and free of all copyright restrictions. The following wills are in this category: Henry Fonda, John Lennon, and David Packard. These wills are also in the public domain as of this date. See 17 U.S.C. Sec 301 et sig.

Fourth, wills published after March 1, 1989 seem to have some copyright protection, although it is not clear since these wills have been published and available to the general public continuously since the testator's date of death. Moreover, the interplay between copyright restrictions and the 1st Amendment rights inherent in court files is uncertain. Most federal and state courts are struggling with privacy issues raised by the advent of the internet and other electronic means of document transmission. Still, the fact that the wills of famous individuals have long been published on the internet and in other print media seems to negate both copyright restrictions and privacy rights; i.e., who can complain about copyright infringement and loss of privacy at this point in time? The wills currently published on our website that fall into this category are: Warren Burger, Princess Diana, Joe DiMaggio, Doris Duke, Jerry Garcia, Harry Helmsley, John F. Kennedy, Jr., Linda McCartney, Richard Nixon, Jacquiline Onassis, and Frank Sinatra.

The copyright laws do provide for some use of copyright material without infringing a copyright holder's rights; i.e., the "fair use" doctrine under Title 17, U.S.C. The "fair use" doctrine is actually a balancing of the copyright laws and the 1st Amendment rights to free speech. Wikipedia has a good description of the fair use doctrine in general and as applied by Wikipedia. It is my opinion that the publication of the wills of famous people who died after March 1, 1989 on the Living Trust website would fall under the "fair use" exception (if there is any copyright protection still available for those wills). This is especially true considering the lack of any monitary value of these wills, the fact that we do not charge fees for viewing these wills, and the fact that these same wills are readily available all over the internet and in other print media. Furthermore, there has been no attempt by anyone to obtain copyright protection on any of these wills.

So, I trust this information will be sufficient to allow us to link to these wills from the biographies of these famous people on Wikipedia. People visiting Wikipedia's webpages on these people have a significant interest in their wills also. Thanks. Livingtrust 16:51, 2 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Well, you've satisfied me that you've at least researched and understood the issues well enough to reasonably navigate your own risks, so I'm not too worried about liability issues. I also personally support the addition of the links, but I can't unilaterally make that decision on Wikipedia as a whole, and your commercial involvement with the website makes it improper for you to add the links yourself. What I suggest you do is post a comment on the talk pages (only) of each article for which you have a will you'd like to add, to let other contributors know that the document is available. Please feel free to contact me again if this causes any further problems, or if you need me to voice support. Postdlf 19:12, 4 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Your edits to Talk:Walt Disney

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I reverted your edits to Talk:Walt Disney because you cut off the last half of the page, roughly 4100 characters. (See here, which compares your last edit with mine.)

If you're using Firefox with the Google Toolbar, there is a known bug that erases large amounts of text when this combo is used at Wikipedia. If that is the case, you could uninstall the Google Toolbar when editing Wikipedia. In any case, please check the preview before submitting your comments. Thanks. Happy editing - Baseball,Baby! balls•strikes 02:16, 8 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

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Hi, I don't know that you're behind it, but having anonymous users like 216.89.71.11 (talk · contribs) and 68.175.43.105 (talk · contribs) add many links to your site is not an acceptable way to have your links included. You need to have the agreement of editors on the relavant talk page.

Also, I think posting execessive requests for your links to be added on talk pages could be considered spamming. Wmahan. 05:35, 11 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Another thing--in the solicitation that you've cut-and-pasted to several talk pages, you say that "Wikipedia does not object to the link". That's true but misleading, since Wikipedia is a heterogeneous entity and we haven't come to any agreement or consensus regarding your links, as far as I can tell. Wmahan. 06:08, 11 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

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