Richard, At first I also believed that Ancestry.com was one of the best bargains I ever encountered, too. Not anymore. The census images are available elsewhere .... Aren't they at Heritage Quest? -- Which you get free with a library card number from many libraries. You also get the Heritage Quest books and Revolutionary War pension applications ... With just a library card. I spent long hours going through Ancestry's census images when they weren't fully indexed .... Actually not fully there. Finally, they were almost all up, and I got a phone call from Ancestry telling me I needed to pay my annual fee a month early to ensure that I got in before they raised the rates .... Since the census was almost complete. You don't think we should have gotten a break for the price we paid to browse unindexed census records? I have gotten a lot from the newspaper images, which can also be obtained elsewhere. These, after all the time they've been up still have newspapers mixed up. I think for the price we all pay for this, rather than indexing our own donated work in order to charge even more, they should straighten up their newspapers. I'd like to not have to check out Iowa newspapers for Ohio information. One would think they could do a little better with the ship lists and church records. These could be easily placed together as they are in books. Maybe they could have fixed that problem for us before indexing our own research for us (which is actually indexed in a way by a Google search). When the Rootsweb trees first came out and the Ancestry.com trees came out, they were ok ... No index necessary. Then came the cloning. Does Ancestry have no power to stop the copying and pasting from database to database? There's a little copyright infringement going on there. Maybe they could put one of their aggressive telemarketers to work fixing some of their problems rather than attempting to get money early or promise people a months free trial that they don't get without an early cut off of their subscription, as I did. I wouldn't mind having the money back they took out of my credit card this month for the subscription I didn' t order, either. Sure there are good features. There always have been. But they never complete the project. They just go on to another feature designed to grab more money. The vital records are handy, but easier to find in a book, since we have to guess the spelling instead of reviewing the index for possible spellings. You are right that the donated databases are "free" to the extent that they are paid for by our subscriptions -- We all get to look at them in their original or copied from the copied from copied from copied from original form whether we subscribe or not. The OneWorldTree is nothing but a scam to make money from donated material. As I stated earlier, Google indexes them in a much more easy to find way that does not lump together old bad research simply because it has dates. I've had to go over yet again the same errors with fellow researchers who suddenly saw people married to imaginary people once again. Normally a database with this information would be disregarded as bad information and skipped by. Now, lumped together as possible matches, people wonder again. And they wonder again if some of their imaginary kids actually existed. The unnecessary pay for index is totally useless and causes more problems than it's worth. I've received several emails asking the same old wrong questions simply because they are on this useless index that some people believe is something new. People got awful uptight a few years back when a man made a web page for which he paid by advertising banners. This web page attempted to index records from sub-pages of other people's websites. How was he wrong and Ancestry.com right? Can I index this stuff and charge for it? At least I'd look for obvious inaccuracies and dump those databases rather than the ones without the dates. Richard, I am not lying. I am expressing my opinion, which is just as important as yours. I expect you to respect it just as I do yours, whether you agree or not. It's not polite to ask me to acknowledge this email so you can determine whether I am deliberately lying. Now, will you please acknowledge this so you can tell me exactly when I said I donated a gedcom to Rootsweb or Ancestry. I won't ever. I have sent people information for their databases back when the project seemed it might be worthwhile. You might also acknowledge that you know that you have one of my ancestor's names wrong in a footnote at your Mill Creek page. I told you this a long time ago. Lewis Bibler was married to Barbara, not Mary. Is it a mistake, or were you deliberately lying? And, when you stated that Mary Pence married "Francis Pevler (now Bibler)" were you deliberately lying, or do you just not know, with all that Hawksbill research you did that his name was never Pevler, that that was just an incorrect spelling or poor transcription on a marriage record, kinda like Elizabeth "Dance" (Pence). He was born and died a Bibler, and records usually called him either Peebler or Bibler. By the way, were you deliberately lying when you say he was from Lancaster County, PA? If not, could you please tell us what evidence you have? Last we spotted the Biblers before they went to Virginia, they were in Philadelphia. >There seems to be an awful lot of cutting off nozes to spite faces going >around this week. I am not cutting off my noZe to spite my face, nor am I biting the hand that feeds me. The subscribers feed both Ancestry and Rootsweb or they would cease to exist. We pay for the Freepages through subscriptions ... In my case a couple I didn't order ... And of course the copy of Family Tree Maker I couldn't refuse, didn't want, but had to pay $5 shipping and handling for. Actually, the Historical Records are really worthwhile at Genealogy.com. The rest of it anymore can be obtained from Heritage Quest except some scanned and OCRed books, which are probably out on the Internet somewhere else by now. There are a lot of great library and archives sites adding all kinds of information every day. Debbie By the way, I do apologize for the rude remarks above, but I don't think we should insinuate that one of us would deliberately lie. More likely we accidentally make mistakes sometimes. ************************************** Get a sneak peek of the all-new AOL at http://discover.aol.com/memed/aolcom30tour

This discussion is migrating far away from copyright issues, which is the topic of this list. Please remain on topic, or refrain from posting to the list. copyright-admin@rootsweb.com

While I agree that lists should remain on topic, and not digress too far afield from their mission statement I don't believe I've seen anything here that wasn't closely related to copyright issues--- The distinction between copyright, plagerism, and licenseing requires a fairly refine eye. There's no message that has come across in the last few days (And there's been an awful lot of them) that hasn't provide valuable insight for me as to the limitations of copyright issues in my own work. The forays into plagerism have been particularly informative. Even the commentary on the business practices of Ancestry and Rootsweb seem to be ultimately related to the copyright issue. The commentaries are mostly something that Ancestry and Rootsweb have brought upon themselves. Sort of a long standing popular dissatisfaction with what some see as a very mercenary approach. (By the way, why is Genforum and GenCircles not similarly crticized--- probably because they are much smaller.) Ultimately, however, the criticism of both on this list has been driven by a perception that they profit from the work of others coupled with the perception that this is somehow tied up in copyright issues. I don't think that's the core problem here, but that's why people are discussing it on this list. (On this general subject, a subscribe to the view that Ancestry is about the most valuable tool I've found on the net--- (well, not exactly, ancestry is a very valuable resource, but I think the newly developing wiki's are actually more significant for me.) About the only messages, or perhaps parts of messages, that I could have done without are the ones that verge on, or slop over into, personal attacks. There haven't been many, but there have been some. Could have lived without those. But as far as I'm concerned everything has been very much on subject, or so closely related to it as to make little difference. I would also point out that I registered for this list probably eight months ago or more. At the time I'd been intersted in some particular points related to copyright issues on the web, and reviewed the lists archives. Very, very, informative. So I subscribed. During those entire eight months there hasn't been a single email from this list. And curoiusly, when I posted questions to the list, I never saw my questions appear in return email. Possibly something went agly, But then someone else finally posted an item---the one that started this discussion---so I replied. Even more curious---my email didn't get posted until well after several other messages had been posted. I do find that very curious, and I also have a fair idea of why that might have occurred. I would understand the concern for staying on topic if the list were all that active. But since I've found everything I've read in the last several days informative, I'd have to say that I'd rather see the list dealing with the occasional off topic item, than not having the postings. On the otherhand, once this flurry of excitement is over, I suspect this list will fall back into inactivity. Too bad. As I say, I've learned much from the emails. They've been very valuable. Bill On Sep 1, 2007, at 10:10 PM, Copyright Admin wrote: > This discussion is migrating far away from copyright issues, which is > the topic of this list. Please remain on topic, or refrain from > posting to the list. > > > copyright-admin@rootsweb.com > > > > ------------------------------- > To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to COPYRIGHT- > request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes > in the subject and the body of the message