Are you just stealing content?
This site combines sources—much of it is the work that Phil did, which unifies news articles. Other sources are local historians, and still others are new contributions not seen anywhere else, so it is not a one-for-one copy.
However, regarding the question, I will let Phil answer this in his own words:
No man owns history, therefore you should feel free to use anything in this web site for any purpose you see fit. The only important thing is that knowledge be preserved, made accessible, and passed down to future generations. This site is not for profit and proud of it, for to claim title to and profit from the actions of those long gone seems to, at best, bogus, and at worst, immoral. If left to the greedy, there would be no public domain – Constitution and the Bible would be the property of an individual, institution, or corporation.
Phil Cohen, www.dvrbs.com
Donations
Can I donate?
It’s not something being openly considered.
What would donations be used for?
Hosting costs, primarily. We also have costs associated to domain registration, our CDN, search capabilities on this site, and more. For future content, we would use it for microfilm research, a newspapers.com subscription, or similar research costs.
If you’re not soliciting donations, why do you describe what you would use them for?
Donations are not openly solicited, however, heavy users of the site may see donation messages pop up and can receive special benefits depending upon the donation commitment. The benefits change over time, though one example could be a sponsored page, special advertising, having no advertising when browsing, etc.