RootsChat.Com
General => The Common Room => Topic started by: S128 on Monday 18 June 18 13:03 BST (UK)
-
Hello
Not too sure if i'm being a little pathetic or if I'm right in my feelings.
I had a distant Cousin contact me through Ancestry, we share a set of Great Great Great Grandparents. Which Is fine, I let him view my tree but then I have found he has screen-shotted my pictures and then re-uploaded them as his own, pictures of my Mother, Father, Grand-parents and Great- Grandparents. There's dozens of pictures that I have spent a great deal of time restoring and also images I have shared on here to be restored. He has copy and pasted a story word for word that I wrote about one of my ancestors and then passed it off as his own..... This story took me years to put together and involved a lot of research and visits to London to find out what happened to said person.
He knows how to use the 'add to my tree' option as he's done it with 3 other images but the dozen other and the story he's re-uploaded as his own.
If I ever take anything from some else's tree I will always ask and always make sure the person who I originally got the information from is credited.
Am I being pathetic or would it slightly anger you also?
Thanks
-
The moral of this tale is, if it annoys you, do not share.
You can always take photographs of total strangers and add them to your tree, claiming they are a relative who they really are not. Let him/her copy them, set your tree as private and then remove them.
Malky
-
...
You can always take photographs of total strangers and add them to your tree, claiming they are a relative who they really are not. Let him/her copy them ...
I like that idea ;D ;D
Sadly, whatever the legal position, once you have posted anything online it is effectively in the public domain and anyone can copy it, plagiarise it as their own work, or re-post it elsewhere. Most of us will have been victims of this at some time, and there seems little we can do but learn by our mistakes and only post images we are happy to share.
I have to confesss I have copied pictures of distant relatives from genealogy sites ( I might have to re-think that after Malky's post :-\ ), but purely for my own use. I wouldn't dream of re-posting them without permission from the original owner.
Mike.
-
I don't really see why it's a big deal, as long as they aren't profiting in some way from it. I mean, technically it's usually some long dead relative who actually OWNED the images and stories. Obviously, I get S121's point and realize that it's rude to not credit someone for their efforts, especially if there's an actual proper name attached to it instead of just a username.
-
In my opinion it is good manners to ask first
Louisa Maud
-
I must admit that generally I have given up asking as every time I did so the response was always yes of course you can copy the image to your own tree and they seemed to think I was a bit odd for asking.
After all the images are on public trees - if they didn't want them copied I would have thought they would have kept the tree private.
Modified to add that I am only talking about photos and as my tree is private I am not uploading them to a public domain neither am I claiming ownership.
Pheno
-
I have copied without asking but kept them only on my computer for my person record, I wouldn’t dream of publishing them on an online tree, or passing them on to someone else without asking permission.
If I had my tree online, which I don’t, and published my own pictures, I would copyright them, so that would be obvious to anyone else.
-
I have copied without asking but kept them only on my computer for my person record, I wouldn’t dream of publishing them on an online tree, or passing them on to someone else without asking permission.
If I had my tree online, which I don’t, and published my own pictures, I would copyright them, so that would be obvious to anyone else.
Just picking up your point, Jebber, how would you copyright them? Do you mean a watermark, if so how would you do this?
Regards
Chas
-
Just picking up your point, Jebber, how would you copyright them? Do you mean a watermark, if so how would you do this?
Regards
Chas
Yes Chas, watermark right across the the picture diagonally, most photo imaging programs have the facility to do this. You should be able to do so as prominently or faintly as you wish.
I do so when emailing images to people I don't know and am not sure how trustworthy they are, obviously I don't do so trusted contacts.
I learned my lesson a long time ago, when I sent someone transcriptions I had made of some handwritten documents, I later found them on line passed off as the recipients work. I knew it was my work because the originals are in my possession and have never been in the public domain.
-
It would upset me, too. Unfortunately (IMO), this has become the norm with people who have online trees. It becomes a case of "once burned, twice shy."
You've learned (the hard way) how much it bothers you. It may not bother some other people but your feelings are yours and they are valid. All you can do now is figure out how you will proceed from here.
-
... I learned my lesson a long time ago, when I sent someone transcriptions I had made of some handwritten documents, I later found them on line passed off as the recipients work. I knew it was my work because the originals are in my possession and have never been in the public domain.
Yes, same here . . . but we live and learn . . . hopefully.
I've since decided that life's too short to worry over what is done, but try to avoid making the same mistakes again ::)
Mike
-
Personally, I think it despicable to pass a pice of work off as your own when in fact it is someone else's hard work. Some people obviously have no shame.
Have you contacted the person and raised the issue?
-
Never share your tree!!
I've had people contact me about someone on my tree and requesting (insisting?) I give them access.
I just ask them who they are looking for, names dates etc.... enough to see if it is same person on my tree, never hear from most again.
The last one was from NZ and I got enough info to see mine was same person.
I then replied that it was and I have 5 children for the person
All I got back was "No, she had 92 and I never heard from them again!! Most want stuff but give very little!
Their loss as I could get 4 generations back in time......
-
Change "No, she had 92 to "No, she had 9" ;D ;D
-
If it is a public tree on ancestry I think the assumption is that it's fine to copy and upload to your own tree.
However, if it was a private tree that you have given access to, it is rather rude that they didn't ask permission first.
Take this as a lesson learned and maybe next time someone requests to view your tree, state that they are welcome to use your research to help theirs, but please do not copy and upload my pictures etc, sometimes if you make it clear they may take notice.
-
Personally, I think it despicable to pass a pice of work off as your own when in fact it is someone else's hard work. Some people obviously have no shame.
Have you contacted the person and raised the issue?
Yes I did, I received an apology and an offer to inform the site they had posted on that it was my work, I responded that it too late. I had intended sending them the originals as the were by the persons direct ancestor rather than mine, but after their duplicity I decided to keep them, so they have lost out.
-
If you make a very minor error in something that you pass to someone else you will then be able to identify that error if ever they copy your work.
Even the London A to Z Street atlas adds a few dozen nonexistent streets and buildings, just for this very reason. They are called trap streets.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trap_street
Martin
-
Good on you. Taking someone else's hard work and passing it off as your own is theft.
I take the point of those saying if a tree is public it is there for the taking, but that's not the issue here, the issue is private trees opened for researchers with an ancestor in common, and the said researchers then take photos, work pieces etc without asking AND pass them off as their own. It is dishonest.
-
Personally, I think it despicable to pass a pice of work off as your own when in fact it is someone else's hard work. Some people obviously have no shame.
Have you contacted the person and raised the issue?
Yes I did, I received an apology and an offer to inform the site they had posted on that it was my work, I responded that it too late. I had intended sending them the originals as the were by the persons direct ancestor rather than mine, but after their duplicity I decided to keep them, so they have lost out.
I take it you have now denied them access!!
-
I don't mind people copying certificates or photos but was once rather startled that a private message I had sent someone was reproduced in public on their tree. I would have taken more care in writing it had I known it would be visible for perpetuity.
-
Change "No, she had 92 to "No, she had 9" ;D ;D
In all my excitement, I gave you a wrong figure ;D ;D ;D No, it wasn't from this Kiwi.
When I first started my journey on genealogy, a tree owner I contacted started to give me the bare bones, until they could trust me, then I got a little bit of the flesh on the understanding that I would have to do the rest of the leg work myself. Reason being was that someone had posted this persons tree as their own ... the work on the tree was done in the days before it all became available on the net. I have had someone contact me and insist I give them everything I had, as they didn't have subs to the genealogy sites, and wanted to save some dollars.
Cheers
KHP
-
A second cousin recently took some of my family photos from facebook then posted them as hers. When I said it would have been nice to ask first and that several of them were from a totally unrelated part of the family (and would she please taken them out) she said that photos belonged to all of us, accused me of not sharing, removed all my posts (she was admin) then told my first cousin an entirely different story! Makes me glad I'm not going to that family reunion this summer ;D
-
Change "No, she had 92 to "No, she had 9" ;D ;D
;D ;D ;D Well umm..... I was wondering!! 😱😱🤔🤔😂😂😂😂
-
I guess I just don't get it. I'm glad whenever someone connects to my tree or adds something. I don't care if a picture is reproduced on another genealogy site, as long as the information is correct. It's not like I'm getting hacked or something if I already publicly posted or gave someone some images.
-
I guess I just don't get it. I'm glad whenever someone connects to my tree or adds something. I don't care if a picture is reproduced on another genealogy site, as long as the information is correct. It's not like I'm getting hacked or something if I already publicly posted or gave someone some images.
However, whether it’s of concern to you is really of no matter. Ancestry holds the licence for all images that have been uploaded by their customers so nobody can just come along, take copies of those that are publically available and display them anywhere else without Ancestry’s permission.
The OP has posed a different issue. They have given permission for someone to see their private tree and subsequently this person has copied some (many) photos (screen shot or some other method) and uploaded them as if they were their own. I’m assuming that when you are given access to someone’s private tree you cannot attached any images to your own tree, hence this person using some other copy method. The issue here then is one of copyright. As the distant cousin does not own the copyright of the images that they have acquired, then they are breaking the Ancestry Ts&Cs by uploading them. The OP can ask Ancestry to have them removed, although I suspect proving ownership of copyright may be difficult and some may well be out of copyright any way (restored or not).
Simon
-
The moral of this tale is, if it annoys you, do not share.
You can always take photographs of total strangers and add them to your tree, claiming they are a relative who they really are not. Let him/her copy them, set your tree as private and then remove them.
Malky
People steal from printed family histories too, a relative of a relative wholesale copied & photographed a FH I made and put it on their own tree with no acknowledgement!
-
"People steal from printed family histories too, a relative of a relative wholesale copied & photographed a FH I made and put it on their own tree with no acknowledgement!"
This happened to me, too. One of the four or so cousins with whom I shared my expensively-researched printed family tree document gave it to a man who keeps a large tree online with as many people from a specific area as he can find. I noticed he had some info about my family online and contacted him. He proceeded to email me my entire document, complete with all of my data and all of the commentary I had written. I was shocked. I told him that I was the original author of what he had sent me and at first he vehemently denied it. Then he got nasty, called me names, and said it didn't matter because it was all in the public domain. I realized he would never acknowledge my research and that the data was now his, so I begged him to delete the commentary and certain specific identifying details about a family member who had been born and died less than 100 years ago. I don't know if he ever did it. All I know is that he was offering my research on a CD to anyone who would give him data on living people who belonged to this extended family. It was a deeply upsetting experience for me.
-
"People steal from printed family histories too, a relative of a relative wholesale copied & photographed a FH I made and put it on their own tree with no acknowledgement!"
This happened to me, too. One of the four or so cousins with whom I shared my expensively-researched printed family tree document gave it to a man who keeps a large tree online with as many people from a specific area as he can find. I noticed he had some info about my family online and contacted him. He proceeded to email me my entire document, complete with all of my data and all of the commentary I had written. I was shocked. I told him that I was the original author of what he had sent me and at first he vehemently denied it. Then he got nasty, called me names, and said it didn't matter because it was all in the public domain. I realized he would never acknowledge my research and that the data was now his, so I begged him to delete the commentary and certain specific identifying details about a family member who had been born and died less than 100 years ago. I don't know if he ever did it. All I know is that he was offering my research on a CD to anyone who would give him data on living people who belonged to this extended family. It was a deeply upsetting experience for me.
Sorry to hear, it is so annoying and stressful when you spend so much time on things and someone just takes it and passes it off as their own. I suspected if I confronted the person they might also get nasty and then refuse to delete it or simply ignore me. I suppose I could ask ancestry to delete it, but I'd be surprised if they took any notice ::). I wonder whether or not copyright law applies, of course most people can't afford to bring a case or won't because it's only something done not for profit anyway.
-
Sorry to hear, it is so annoying and stressful when you spend so much time on things and someone just takes it and passes it off as their own. I suspected if I confronted the person they might also get nasty and then refuse to delete it or simply ignore me. I suppose I could ask ancestry to delete it, but I'd be surprised if they took any notice ::). I wonder whether or not copyright law applies, of course most people can't afford to bring a case or won't because it's only something done not for profit anyway.
Thanks. I've also worked as a newspaper reporter and I still feel irked when I remember the time some jerk plagiarized an article of mine. But at least when that happened my editor emailed the offending newspaper and it complied with our demands (replacing their so-called reporter's byline with our newspaper's name and adding a link to the original story).
The ability to freely copy, paste and otherwise reproduce someone else's work is too big a temptation for some to resist, while other folks might not have a full appreciation of the issues. The way that people use their online trees as they would a notebook in their desk drawer also complicates matters: for me, there's a big difference between the tree I keep on my computer and something I would consider publishable, but that's not the case for most people nowadays.
I don't know how Ancestry would respond. It might be worth a try.
-
I suspect the professional response you met with from the newspaper wouldn't be replicated by ancestry :o :o. I am afraid it's probably just too much of a faff to go through (as the person who plagiarized knew), as I'd have to go and photograph the FH which is half way across the country, then post links to ancestry, and then perhaps be met with questions of how I can claim that is my work as my name isn't on every page? Not worth it sadly.
-
I have been researching a family for a long time as have several other people. They have all got stuck at the same point and had either given up or made assumptions. When I eventually cracked this brickwall I decided to put the tree on Ancestry and make it public, complete with BMD, wills etc.
I am surprised how few people have copied this tree.
-
I treat Ancestry like I treat Facebook. Once shared. it is in the public domain, and there is no use complaining about what other people do with your words. You chose to let this person have full access to your research without putting any safeguards in place. It is wrong that they didn't acknowledge you as their source, but it is not an unusual (nor new) occurrence. People see a source of information and will attach it to their tree because they want to increase its volume (quantity over quality being the evident aim of most trees I see online). 'Click and paste' is very easy, and faffing about with acknowledging sources is something many people are too lazy to do. I am not condoning the behaviour, but you gave them access without knowing who they were. You wouldn't do that with your physical possessions, so why do with your intellectual property?
You can always comment on the images they have used, and state that it is your work. I commented on someone mislabeling a picture on their tree as a common ancestor of ours, when it was in fact a famous philosopher. The picture is still on their tree, but my comment and correction is also still attached to it, so anyone interested enough can see their error, and also their laziness in not removing it.
-
one of the issues now to is anything you attach to you tree, ancestry will let others attach to theirs unless you make your tree private of course, where others can't see it.
If something is shared as public I think we have to expect others will attach it to their tree if researching that line too.
-
I can very much sympathise with those who have had their research lifted from their trees and posted on someone else's as theirs.
This is why I have never put any trees of mine online. For me that saves a lot of aggro and I don't have to worry about what those researchers choose to claim or otherwise.
Some of my trees are really big and I just can't be bothered to list them all, it would take ages and ages ::)
-
I can very much sympathise with those who have had their research lifted from their trees and posted on someone else's as theirs.
This is why I have never put any trees of mine online. For me that saves a lot of aggro and I don't have to worry about what those researchers choose to claim or otherwise.
Some of my trees are really big and I just can't be bothered to list them all, it would take ages and ages ::)
I agree ;D
Many people now seem to think researching your FH means copying and pasting other peoples online trees is how it is done, many assume everyones 'tree' is already reserched and it just needs to be 'found' and once 'found' it is their tree.... however good manners also seems to go out of the window online.
Thankfully I started researching long before the internet and learned how to research, so appreciate the hard work that researchers do, I have never posted my FH online it is all on my own PC. I have seen many 'trees' online that are supposibly 'my' ancestry, they are all the same all copied from one example which is wrong... and as silly as it sounds for a long time that 'bothered me'
-
May I introduce Thomas Drummer Thompson b1810 in Bedale d1868 in Bradford otherwise known as my 2xGGF.
I have lost count of the number of times his image was copied and pasted from my Tree with not so much as a May I or If You Don't Mind But......
I have since made my Tree Private, I still get hints and requests but those who I trust have invitation access to view my Tree.
-
He doesn't look as if he'd approve of these 'thefts' does he, Biggles......
-
Ive just found a lovely portrait of my great granfathers sister Martha Ann used as a profilé picture for her
Its been copied 5 times but one person has attached it to a different Martha Ann
Id put a comment underneath a while back adding her parents names which the original poster didnt know .shes copied the details I gave and ive copied her picture .
I love old photos but copying without checking the person is the correct one is daft .
If people copy a document or a picture I post ...I usually contact them to see how we connect .
-
Hello
Not too sure if i'm being a little pathetic or if I'm right in my feelings.
I had a distant Cousin contact me through Ancestry, we share a set of Great Great Great Grandparents. Which Is fine, I let him view my tree but then I have found he has screen-shotted my pictures and then re-uploaded them as his own, pictures of my Mother, Father, Grand-parents and Great- Grandparents. There's dozens of pictures that I have spent a great deal of time restoring and also images I have shared on here to be restored. He has copy and pasted a story word for word that I wrote about one of my ancestors and then passed it off as his own..... This story took me years to put together and involved a lot of research and visits to London to find out what happened to said person.
He knows how to use the 'add to my tree' option as he's done it with 3 other images but the dozen other and the story he's re-uploaded as his own.
If I ever take anything from some else's tree I will always ask and always make sure the person who I originally got the information from is credited.
Am I being pathetic or would it slightly anger you also?
Thanks
Though I agree with the body text of your post that before anyone copies your work and images they should ask, but your heading is completely wrong, he has not stolen anything!
You still have the text you still have the images so they have not been stolen, but you have libelled him, though to your credit you did not name the individual.
Cheers
Guy
-
It would be nice to get a 'please' , acknowledgement or a 'thank' you for our work. However the nature of the internet means that most of this material is available to anyone with a computer. It is nieve to believe otherwise. Once it is posted on the net 'anywhere' it is out there and you have buggerall control of where it goes.
I hope you all have your brickwalls broken down, you find that 'gateway cousin and your DNA match alerts are all successful.
cheers
Jack Gee