The point I was trying to make earlier was with regard to the "strong arm" tactics of this company in dealing with people they deem to have broken their terms & conditions.
Ebay has a policy of trying to stop illegal activity on their site. If S&N has a problem with people selling it's goods in an unacceptable fashion on the Ebay site.....why do they not liase directly with Ebay and find a solution? S&N need to be very careful with the "name & shame" list on their own website, they could easily find themselves on the receiving end of a solicitor's letter if they make the slightest error in the information they publish.
I personally have never bought a census CD set, the cost has always put me off.....if I only want to check half a dozen addresses, spending £40 is an expensive way to do it.
I appreciate that these companies are providing "easy" access to information for a good number of researchers who would otherwise find it difficult and that their business would not exist if there wasn't a demand for what they sold. As Forester commented, maybe S&N have missed a marketing opportunity here, we'll wait and see! I'd also be interested to know if S&N staff were aware that their jobs were under threat.... they obviously will when they read this thread? Nice way to find out
With regards to the ownership/copyright issue, please correct me if I'm wrong, but I thought all census details were "Crown copyright".....doesn't this mean that the government profit from selling a licence to reproduce the information?
Maybe, as in an earlier thread, we should all volunteer just half an hour of our time each week to
http://freeukgen.rootsweb.com/ If all 10,000+ Rootschatters did 30 mins per week, that's approximately 5000 hours a week of transcribed data that will be available for free to anyone and everyone! Eventually we'd get to the point where we don't need to concern ourselves with type of discussion
tabitha (I don't always moan...honest!!
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