RootsChat.Com
Scotland (Counties as in 1851-1901) => Scotland => Dumfriesshire => Topic started by: irenemac on Monday 15 February 10 14:58 GMT (UK)
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I have just been alerted to the use of family history society publications by members of this forum. As the publications convenor for the Dumfries and Galloway FHS may I point out that the books of Memorial Inscriptions are published by the FHS only because volunteers from the FHS have put their time and effort into producing them. We keep the cost as low as we can ...much less than a commercial organisation would charge. We sell the booklets to produce funds for the FHS which in turn keeps the cost of membership down. If the sales diminish where is the incentive for our volunteers to tramp round a graveyard, peering at gravestones in order to transcribe them? So while it may be very nice to get the information for nothing, bear in mind that, if our volunteers get discouraged and we stop producing any more collections of MIs, the cost of travelling to hunt for yourself might be a lot more than you are prepared to pay.
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Hi Irene
You raise an interesting point, I'm sure most people here would be in support of the efforts of volunteers and appreciate the low cost of the booklets. Have you considered the possibility that using the publications on this forum could increase sales. If I was told that my ancestors MI's were in a particular booklet I would still want to buy it despite being given the info for free. Just a thought. :)
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Presumably that would apply to purchasers of CDs too.
I'm all for folk helping each other, but it would be nice to see added ... info obtained from such and such a source.
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I disagree with purplekat and walterc.
If the information is anywhere for free, I'm not going to buy the publication.
As a matter of policy, I think the moderators should require everyone not to do lookups for people, and not to post anything out of other people's publications, and automatically block anyone that does, possibly even provide the publishers with the member's IP address and identity.
I've helped clean gravestones, record and transcribe inscriptions - it's time consuming, and hard back-breaking work, often in not very nice weather.
I wouldn't like to see my work stolen by someone who had bought the CD or book (often for as little as £20 or less) and published on the internet.
I would hate to see more societies stop transcribing cemeteries (some have already stopped, because their volunteers work has been ripped off); and I urge you not to do lookups for other people.
I've spent weeks searching in some cemeteries where I have ancestors, and the cost of a publication is often less than the cost of my travel there, let alone the cost of my valuable time.
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Don't you think if there were no more look-ups RC membership would drop drastically?
I for one living, 6000 miles away from the U.K. do not have access to purchasing these publications - time spent in ordering, organising payment (at an horrific exchange rate), waiting for the post - if it didn't go missing (and it does - frequently!).
Sorry, I do know folk put a lot of time, free and willingly into the publications, (cemetery transcription etc - I've done it many times myself) but to suggest putting a blanket stop on look-up requests, would penalise very many folk who do not have access to researching for themselves.
I agree that an acknowledgement of the source of data would be appreciated, I also agree were I to find an ancestor of mine in a publication I would be inclined to purchase it if I could. This I do on my rare visits to the U.K.
Ceeoh
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If the information is anywhere for free, I'm not going to buy the publication
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But wouldn't you want some backup on the information to verifiy it?
The Dumfries and Galloway FHS does a great job and the booklets are very reasonably priced, the website is often recommended to others by rootschatters on this site. As long as source of the data is acknowledged then it is a good advert for the service. :)
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Ceeoh,
Whether or not RootsChat membership would drop is irrelevant - since they're not governed by the number of members they have nor do they charge for membership.
Your distance from the UK is also more or less irrelevant - even though I could take the time off to go traipsing around the countryside, I couldn't afford the fares or the petrol or the accommodation away from home.
The other side of the coin to your argument that you're 6000 miles away, is that it would cost you much more to do the research yourself, therefore you ought to be delighted to be able to purchase the research for a tiny fraction of your travel costs.
I'm not convinced that you would buy publications since you complain about the cost in your 2nd para. If publications go missing complain to the sender or your Post Office.
Do you feel that the people who do buy publications should subsidise the people that want free lookups ?
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I absolutely agree that Dumfries and Galloway FHS does a great job and the booklets are very reasonably priced, but an advert for their service brings them not one penny.
The Society must spend a lot of money to get a stock of books published, and if they don't sell will need to raise more income to offset the loss, either by increasing their subscription cost, or by increasing the cost of the publications.
Like many FHSes they are a charity, too.
Incidentally, I'm not one of their members.
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You wouldn't steal books from the library, or electricity from the power company, so why would you steal from a charity ?
If you answer, it's not stealing if it's open view, I disagree; if you see a purse lying on the ground, do you pocket it and keep it ?
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I absolutely agree that Dumfries and Galloway FHS does a great job and the booklets are very reasonably priced, but an advert for their service brings them not one penny.
I was thinking from the point of view that if more people went to the website and saw the publications on offer sales would increase.
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Well, purplekat, they might increase, but not as much an increase if people didn't post looked-up information in the first place.
After all, we who use RootsChat all know that family history societies exist, and we know how to find to whether a society exists, or if we don't we can ask.
I haven't seen anyone posting "is there a family history society for Dumfries, or Annan, or Ae", but I've seen lots of people posting "can you look up Name in Place".
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Further to my penultimate post on this subject:
You wouldn't steal books from the library, or electricity from the power company, so why would you steal from a charity ?
If you answer, it's not stealing if it's open view, I disagree; if you see a purse lying on the ground, do you pocket it and keep it ?
When somebody posts a lookup, they're not just making it available to the person who requested it, but also to everyone else that reads that post for evermore.
How many lost sales is that ? 10, 100, 1,000 ?
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Well, purplekat, they might increase, but not as much an increase if people didn't post looked-up information in the first place.
I can't see it makes much difference, if people don't want to buy the booklets they won't buy them whether or not details are published on rootschat
haven't seen anyone posting "is there a family history society for Dumfries, or Annan, or Ae",
maybe not but I've people posting "there is a family history society in Dumfries etc" :)
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i think this is a big stink about nothing i have purchased dozens of these booklets for myself and for people in new zealand america australia and canada and what is it all about if not for sharing with everybody if i was not allowed to share i would not be happy i have also paid my subscription csc
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I'm quite sure that if you started putting bits of books in print published by the well commercial publishers, they would be after you as quick as anything, and we'd be seeing you reports of your court in the media.
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Aonghus
So you really don't believe I would buy the publications! Would you like a list of what I compiled during the last 23 years? I save up to travel to the U.K. which I manage about once every five years - a lot of time spent in Dumfriesshire where my family originate - and spend 90% of that time hunting around cemeteries, researching archives - all the usual. Believe me, I buy those publications when I can.
Really the distance is not as irrelevent as you may consider it, because that is exactly what I do when I get there, traipse around the country, after paying my air fare, bus/train fares and accommodation, because then I can see for myself what I have read in a publication, or from other sources of information. The old rule, confirm everything.
I have spent many hours transcribing MIs and mistakes do creep in. I take my hat off to the dedicated folk who do all this for the love of our hobby, but even from a publication after checking for myself, I have seen errors. We all make them.
By the way it's no use complaining to our post office!!
Ceeoh
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csc:
I'm sure that there is a big difference in your idea of sharing with people you meet, than there is in openly saying on RootsChat for all the world to see
[quote ...]
if anyone needs info from the langholm parish memorial
i have a cd from them with the info on
i will look anything up for u
[... unquote]
I'm sure there would be a "big stink" if Langholm Archive Society decided not to distribute any more of the memorial booklets.
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Just a thought - there are MIs available from libraries in photo copy form - yes you pay for them and I think they are mostly the older cemeteries. I found this out when visiting Lockerby library and have some wonderful data.
Ceeoh
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i will continue buying them and SHARING THEM if anybody feels like suing me go ahead csc
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Hi Guys
I note that some of you are new to Rootschat - which means that you should have read the terms and conditions recently!
We are not about furious arguments, so perhaps you could all calm down while we wait for the comments of the Copyright Editors - whose opinion I have sought on your behalf.
Thanks
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Many thanks for your comments, ladies and gentlemen.
This obviously contentious subject needs proper consideration from the Copyright Team before making any sort of response to the points raised.
However, we would remind everyone to read the guidance on offers and the copyright guidance in general. It can be found on every county board.
The topic is currently locked.
Many thanks for your patience while the matter is discussed.
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The Copyright Team has been asked for their opinion in this matter since one of their roles is to monitor breaches of licence agreements and contraventions of commercial websites terms and conditions.
This debate would seem to be about what constitutes fair dealing or fair use of the material involved.
RootsChat always asks its members to respect and abide by the terms & conditions of each individual source, including family history society publications. Not all family history societies operate under the same conditions: what may be acceptable to one is not acceptable to another. All members are asked to ensure that they check any possible limitations on the use of published material before they make any offer. If a society or other publisher has concerns and contacts us to discuss the matter, or if we ourselves are not happy with the offer, we may ask for it to be withdrawn or remove it ourselves.
If there is any dispute about the fairness of the limitations imposed by the publisher, it should be discussed with them by RootsChat members themselves: RootsChat will not enter into a debate on this.