I am a paying member of Ancestry.com. Over the years I have had much success in learning about my family. For research purposes, this site has surpassed going directly to the library, visiting the locale, writing letters, and searching all other internet sites. So, I have a a few thoughts before we try an all out effort to bring this site down. 1) We need to consider when is a copyright notice not really valid. A discussion of copyrights really belongs elsewhere. 2) I know that many of us spend a lot of time and money gathering information that is in the public domain (over the many years, I have spent a great deal of time and money on this hobby), but we need to recognize the fact that this does not make the information we gather our "private" property. 3) I hate to say this, but this topic has no place on this discussion board.