The website Historic Hwy 49 makes no qualms about using history to further tourism and commerce. Its historical focus is the “gold rush” period that occurred after 1848 in California, and the majority of the site is dedicated to providing information to tourists about activities that are adjacent to historical sites from period. After a brief evaluation, the content on Historic Hwy 49 seems to avoid violating copyright law, but some of the directives of the site about its content seems based on questionable ethical grounds.

The content on Historic Hwy 49 is comprised of original graphical artwork, images that were created before 1923, and some that were taken after. All published works before 1923 are free to be used by anyone without concern over copyright because it is in the public domain. This means that much of the historical content (scanned photos, drawings of old buildings, and scanned drawings from the goldrush period) found in Historic Hwy 49 would be free from scrutiny. Disappointing for a history site, however, is that Historic Hwy 49 does not site where any of its historic pictures were found. As a visitor to the site, you have no idea who took the images or in what collection they were discovered. It would be much easier to know if the content is truly in the public domain if this information was available.

The content on Historic Hwy 49 that was made post 1923 is obvious to discern. Post 1923 content can be found in both the tourism centered pages on the site and in the historical pages on the site. For instance, the pages that shows the historical churches that line highway 49, is filled with modern images of Churches. The origination of these images is again unknown, but its use by the website is most likely protected from copyright law under “fair use” exemptions. While Historic Hwy 49 does sell historical reproductions of items that predate 1923, it does not make any commercial profit from images that were taken after 1923. These images therefore are being used for non-commercial educational purposes which would fall into the realm of “fair use”.

Seeing how the creators of Historic Hwy 49 are able to navigate copyright laws, we may reasonably think that they have an understanding of such laws, which makes the websites directives to viewers who wish to take images found on the site for their own use strange. For all of the historic images, which are in the public domain, the website says:

“Research: photos may be downloaded at no charge for use in non profit, educational research projects for students and teachers. Please email us with your name, educational affiliation, project name and a list of photos used. Please give credit under each photo: “Photo Credit historichwy49.com””

I don’t believe that Historic Hwy 49, has any right to control how these images are used at all, seeing how they fall into the public domain. Legally, I could take everyone of those photos and sell them on a deck of cards without mentioning Historic Hwy 49 at all. It seems like Historic Hwy 49, wishes to rebrand itself as the owner of these images without having the legal right to do so.