This is a sort of 3-fold (photos, obituaries, biographies) inquiry, I guess, being I don't know who else to ask and am older enough as not familiar with some areas of genealogy. I belong to several groups other than the Rootsweb that are those single-surname groups of Yahoo and MSN,etc. will host. For many years and years I have worked hard and incurred a lot of expense to travel and post up to them, with (for starters) literally hundreds of photographs of individuals, their tombstones and even their old homesteads into their archives and files. Without exception, on every group, I have exceeded the total all the others combined (many offering none, some only one, or as many as 3 or 4), while I continue to post 10 and 20 at a time, compiling and traveling across the country. I'm certainly not tooting my own horn, and I'm not good at legalese or how to express things without stepping on toes, but it has been a lot of expense and time, as very few can understand, imagine or relate. I am not real verbal but I am better at digging and delving, going to courthouses and doing more offline, so I just don't have internet savvy. Since I send it in and know how to put it into the correct files, all that I have posted at least has my name attached as the submitter. To give examples, with the vast array of my own diligent efforts, I even take months or years to get their obituaries from newspapers(writing away, travel), and then take time to transcribe and type out to correspond to their death (dozens of times, over 50-60, I have even gotten their death certificate - but thankfully, as I deemed inappropriately, never contributed those or did anything with them other than save in a folder and use for reference). Many times a local library will have a biography, so I copy those and type them out, then post also, with the correct source of where I got it from. Now some computer-geeks as they call themselves, (I've observed many are the younger zealous ones who make up their charts in a month to broadcast getting it all "done" from other online sources) are pronouncing to the others in the group chat-communications how they downloaded all the photos and are going to make them into a book (interestingly, they have never contributed even one)that they can publish. Others say great idea and they will take all the other files and then make their own book to put out there of another kind, since there is so much great stuff there all sitting in these files. Somebody else jumps in and says don't worry they already took all the stuff and keep master copies of the stuff nobody else could ever find, because "of the wealth of unearthed information" (mostly mine). I'm not the showy or aggressive type, and I am stunned. My name never comes up, or acknowledged in any of this. Perhaps somebody may appreciate how I feel just sitting here; but I haven't said anything because (1) I really don't know if it all belongs to them, or anybody else who wants to grab, distribute and even publish it? (2) sure, I want to share and the whole object of sharing is not really to get credit - but then why should others be permitted to snag my work and get their name attached, their own credit applied for only thing they did was the effort of downloading and taking my years of hard work and lots of money? I don't want to be scrooge, for I am a kind and giving person, but have I a right to say anything? or what should / could I say that is correct? Or did I relinquish any of my own say or rights when I posted into their groups? Are the hundreds of personally-taken photos (mostly tombstones, houses, streets and places that have the isolated and obscure-single-surname across the country) different from the obituaries I searched out, went to locations of newspapers, copied and then tediously typed out? What about the biographies, since they were public and after all, others could have gotten them from libraries and books if they had done the same years of effort of digging and typing? Can people download other people's stuff without asking, with attribution? Please don't think I do not want to 'share', or else I would not be doing this. But!! Is sharing with Rootsweb different from any of the private groups such as Yahoo? Who owns this material, anyway, without sounding selfish. Maybe before they get started on their own books, I should just get busy and post everything of mine into some archive (or places?) outside of the private groups (where?), somehow attach my name and feel better that it is all out there for the masses, and that I got some sort of credit or recognition? Or am I being too sensitive or petty? Bruce D.