"W. David Samuelsen" <dsam@sampubco.com> Joan said: >> This is very similar to One >> World Tree providing a search engine to find otherwise free data. The >> data >> remained free (as it did in this situation) but the tool was what was >> being >> charged for. > Obvious you have NOT tried without *paid subscription* to know the HUGE > difference. > They DID require paid subscription to even see a single free site, even > USGenWeb Project sites which are free, and even required paid access in > order to visit the sites that have NOTHING to do with Ancestry group at > all. That inclues the Political Graveyard site, many sites at USGenNet, > etc. > > That is the line Ancestry crossed too far. I don't think you understood - even a tiny bit - what Joan said. She said, accurately, the outside sites found by the World Family Tree search remained free. Anyone could find them on their own any time they wished and they could use the material freely. What the WFT did - and what subscribers were paying for - was having WFT do the search of all of the other sites for them. David, this issue was decided long ago when concerns were raised about professional genealogists charging clients for work in finding information that would be free at a Family History Center or at the Family History Library. After an initial flurry, the Church properly said that these professionals were not chargin for the information they were charging for the time they spent finding it. As witness to this approach, I ask you to consider that there are hundreds of professional genealogist who live in Salt Lake City and sepnd their days finding free information and then charging their clients for the time spent finding this information. > Also Ancestry went too far - with distorted cache links. Google had > clear cache link and they're very clear, very much unlike Ancestry. If > you have ACTUALLY seen what the cache link look like, you will not > tolerate what Ancestry did. You are talking cosmetics, not criminal activity, aren't you? > > Now it's Obituary Collection - still requiring paid access to see FREE > obituaries at many online newspaper sites. Copyright issue here now. David: Do you really, really want to spend your time going from newspaper to newspaper to find relevant obituaries? Wouldn't you rather have a quite inexpensive search engine do that for you? And are you saying that the copyright issue is because you have to pay for the search? I haven't used the Obituary Collection much but isn't it a collection of extracts from printed obituaries and not the actual written obituaries? If so, these facts are not copyrightable and anyone can extract the facts - and they can charge you to look at them if you are willing to pay for them. Richard Pence