tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8224874.post3687161649224812809..comments2024-03-09T15:04:13.697-08:00Comments on GeneaBlogie: Did Ancestry Violate Copyright Law? . . . . Part 2 of 4Craig Mansonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06567686559055003349noreply@blogger.comBlogger14125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8224874.post-37051307453846937532007-09-11T09:17:00.000-07:002007-09-11T09:17:00.000-07:00Lindsay is misinformed in saying that Google is no...Lindsay is misinformed in saying that Google is not in the Content business. They have digitized and placed online on their site thousands of books and hundreds of videos.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8224874.post-8042948620974732092007-09-10T20:56:00.000-07:002007-09-10T20:56:00.000-07:00Craig, one point I hope you can clarify, recent st...Craig, one point I hope you can clarify, recent stories in the popular press lead me to believe that courts have ruled that merely placing a copyrighted work, in cases involving musical recordings, on a web site with free access constitutes copyright infringement. So there is seems to be an additional test regarding volition, and I suspect it speaks to a difference between Google and Ancestry. Google is very analogous to an ISP in that it is not in the content business. Ancestry on the other hand is taking content for the purpose of publishing it on their own site. One is a side effect of providing search services and has other uses, the other is appropriation for the purpose of publishing. The discussion on "transformational" use in Field seems to me to be quite key to understanding the difference in the two uses.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8224874.post-24868178073309886092007-09-10T17:55:00.000-07:002007-09-10T17:55:00.000-07:00Craig, Thanks for your hard work on this and for k...Craig, Thanks for your hard work on this and for keeping it easy enough for me to follow. As for the comment about the cleverhack blog and the reference to his server log - many of us use blogger or other blog hosts. Do we have access to this server log? If not does that make a difference?Charley "Apple" Grabowskihttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07193646109965731249noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8224874.post-73145361010673464732007-09-10T12:19:00.000-07:002007-09-10T12:19:00.000-07:00Craig, Am I reading correctly "Anon's" statement ...Craig, Am I reading correctly "Anon's" statement that the sending of a bot/spider/crawling thingamodo into someones copyrighted work is "giving notice" --- hogwash!<BR/><BR/>If materials collected through the back door by a spying-like device sent to collect data without the up-front permission of the copyright holder is "fair use" then god help us all. The wolf is beyond the chickenhouse --- he is attacking the very fabric of property rights!<BR/><BR/>Terry Thornton<BR/>Hill Country of Monroe County, MississippiTerry Thorntonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01251750196282728118noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8224874.post-85227154325318019622007-09-10T11:27:00.000-07:002007-09-10T11:27:00.000-07:00Thanks for your info about TGN's webcrawling bot. ...Thanks for your info about TGN's webcrawling bot. This is very important to know because as I've said, the legal outcomes depend on the facts.Craig Mansonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06567686559055003349noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8224874.post-33927760874524154882007-09-10T08:23:00.000-07:002007-09-10T08:23:00.000-07:00Craig, you might find this web page on Ancestry.co...Craig, you might find this web page on Ancestry.com's corporate website useful to your analysis:<BR/>http://www.tgn.com/default.aspx?html=copyrightAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8224874.post-72300237821701545892007-09-10T08:02:00.000-07:002007-09-10T08:02:00.000-07:00I concur with the others who have commented. Your ...I concur with the others who have commented. Your analysis is concise and easy to understand. A most excellent read on a timely subject. I think this would make a most excellent article in a genealogical magazine. Some very interesting reading indeed.<BR/><BR/>BobAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8224874.post-39987791904108797962007-09-10T07:49:00.000-07:002007-09-10T07:49:00.000-07:00Craig, I have noticed in many blogs and message bo...Craig, I have noticed in many blogs and message boards comments similar to the one that Terry Thornton posted to yours, i.e, that The Generations Network (TGN) provided no notice that it was caching Internet content. That is incorrect.<BR/><BR/>Back on 21 October 2006 (almost a year ago), a blogger at a site called Cleverhack noted that TGN had a bot crawling the web. http://cleverhack.com/2006/10/21/575/<BR/><BR/>How did Cleverhack find this out? Cleverhack found it out from his server log, which he excerpts in his blog post. From this, I assume, as is standard industry practice, that everytime the bot crawled a website, it left behind, in the server log, a notice that the site had been crawled, and the URL for where to go to for more information. Cleverhack provided this URL in his blog post, and the URL is still live: http://www.ancestry.com/learn/bot.aspx<BR/><BR/>Note that this webpage is on the Ancestry.com site, and it provides the following information:<BR/>[quote]<BR/>The MyFamilyBot Information Page:<BR/><BR/>What is MyFamilyBot? Why is it accessing my files?:<BR/>MyFamily is creating an index based on a powerful person-based biographical ranking engine that gives superior results over searches done using the more general purpose internet search engines. Ancestry.com indexes the biographic text and provides a search service that points users back to the originating website.<BR/><BR/>MyFamilyBot is the name of a web crawler (a.k.a. robot, spider) used by MyFamily.com to find biographical text on the internet in connection with this engine. The crawler works by deeply crawling sites that contain biographical text. We have constructed the bot to limit its affect on site usage to be within the range of that of the large commercial search engines. Sites that do not contain biographical text are examined in a superficial manner.<BR/><BR/>How do I prevent MyFamilyBot from crawling my site?<BR/>MyFamilyBot supports the internet standard protocols for restricting spiders from crawling web sites. These protocols are described here:<BR/>http://www.robotstxt.org/wc/exclusion.html<BR/><BR/>How can I contact someone concerning MyFamilyBot?<BR/>Please send questions and concerns about MyFamilyBot to SearchBot@MyFamilyInc.com.<BR/>[/quote]<BR/>One of the most widely read genealogical bloggers, Chris Dunham (aka The Genealogue) picked up on Cleverhack's information. As I recall Dick Eastman and Leland Metzler posted links to Dunham's blog on their blogs. A Jewish genealogy website also noted the existence of the TGN bot, although I am not sure of the chain of causation in their case. Just do a Google search for "Genealogue bot" and you will see all the links.<BR/><BR/>The point I am trying to make is that, contrary to popular opinion, TGN provided clear notice in the server logs of each site that it crawled what it was doing and what the site operator needed to do in order to not have his/her site crawled. Providing such notice via server logs is the standard industry practice for how such notice is to be provided. I suspect those who are crying the loudest that they were not informed are those who have never in their life ever looked at their server logs. It is well known that doing so is an important thing to do regularly: http://websecrets.biz/page-305.html<BR/><BR/>So what about those people who posted genealogical information to a site for which they did not have access to the root directory and thus could not set up a robots.txt file? Well, from my point of view, no one HAD to post the information to a site that they did not have administrative rights to. It is extremely cheap to have your own site. Just as with a house, if you are renting, you cannot do a lot of the things that you can do if you own. People who posted content to sites they were just "renting" should have known that they would not have the ability to have total control over that informtion thereafter.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8224874.post-66226373574880455792007-09-10T06:20:00.000-07:002007-09-10T06:20:00.000-07:00Craig,Thank you for Part II, and for your patience...Craig,<BR/><BR/>Thank you for Part II, and for your patience with my additional questions.<BR/><BR/>So far your presentation is very clear, and finally I am starting to understand the Field vs Google ruling that has been so greatly but erroneously used on various message boards to justify Ancestry.com's actions. <BR/><BR/>I'm anxiously awaiting Part III.<BR/><BR/>JaniceJanicehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17476918537317701594noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8224874.post-16854517708164960612007-09-09T23:45:00.000-07:002007-09-09T23:45:00.000-07:00Thank you for your thoughtful and informative anal...Thank you for your thoughtful and informative analysis of this vital topic. I too look forward to the next posts.NevadaGenealogisthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02221827765632245840noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8224874.post-11952335959384348982007-09-09T21:39:00.000-07:002007-09-09T21:39:00.000-07:00Wow, you people are amazing you just can't stop bl...Wow, you people are amazing you just can't stop bloggin about this.<BR/>Google does this every day and we all love them for it. Ancestry.com does it and there is a firestorm of contempt.<BR/>The perplexing part is this - when I get google search results I have to use caution with every link I click - genealogy or not. If not careful you could end up on a site you don't want to be on - horrible content.<BR/>With Ancestry they are narrowing your potential search results - giving you more liklihood of finding what you are looking for and helping eliminate so many 'other' things that could be way off the mark. Seriously folks Ancestry was doing a good thing!<BR/>Kendall - bring it back!Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8224874.post-30594407157277744462007-09-09T19:29:00.000-07:002007-09-09T19:29:00.000-07:00Craig,I stumbled onto your blog by complete accide...Craig,<BR/><BR/>I stumbled onto your blog by complete accident tonight. In fact, I think Google sent me a "News alert" related to "copyrights". It was like an anonymous "true confession" e-mail from my point of view.<BR/><BR/>I am very involved with the same subject matter you write about each and every day ... and I'm not a lawyer. Unless you count the school of hard knocks, that is!<BR/><BR/>In fact, my small graphic arts content development company here in Virginia (www.imageline2.com)spends more time trying to stop the infringement of our property than we are able to spend developing new content and selling. It is a crying shame!<BR/><BR/>The Field case is a bad example because it appears this gentleman set out to deceive folks to make his point. However, the defenses used by Google in this case, and others, are a complete joke, and I , for one, am shocked that these federal judges (even at the trial level) would accept such nonsense.<BR/><BR/>Google's image search engine directly infringes copyrights routinely and willfully. I'm not talking about indirect infringement as Perfect 10 tried to claim. I'm talking about DIRECT infringement.<BR/><BR/>Google makes a copy of our copyright-registered clip art illustrations all the time. And we have never given them permission ... direct or implied.<BR/><BR/>In fact, even after infringing web site publishers remove the infringing images after notice from Imageline, they often remain on the Google servers. They are displayed, accessed, copied, and delivered from the Google servers, not anyone else's, as Google tries to falsely proclaim.<BR/><BR/>The infringed images end up on web sites, in e-mails, as backgrounds, for screensavers, and as icons ... all over the world ... and all because Google willfully infringes them. <BR/><BR/>"That is the business we are in, Google. Not you. Don't give me any of this nonsense about crawlers, meta-tags, spiders, and such .. save that for your engineering meetings and gourmet lunch talk." <BR/><BR/>Google even continues to sell advertising on the infringing web sites long after notice has been given. They refer people to this advertising by using the images they have pirated from Imageline as an enticement.<BR/><BR/>As long as the courts don't hold companies like Google more accountable, no small copyright owner stands a chance with the way things are now going.<BR/><BR/>Can't wait to read your "Fair Use" and DMCA blogs tomorrow. I have never in my life seen anyone try to mislead the judiciary and the general public the way Google is now doing on these two subjects either.<BR/> <BR/>Imageline, for one, intends to do something about this. Keep you eye on our web site over the next few months.<BR/><BR/>And keep up the awareness. You are obviously a very sharp guy.<BR/><BR/>George P. Riddick, III<BR/>Chairman/CEO<BR/>Imageline, Inc.<BR/><BR/>griddick@imageline2.comAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8224874.post-8529105085558202822007-09-09T17:38:00.000-07:002007-09-09T17:38:00.000-07:00Craig, Thanks for your attempt to bring us all up...Craig, Thanks for your attempt to bring us all up to speed on this important issue. I look forward to your "Fair Use" discussion tomorrow. <BR/><BR/>It is shameful that a large for-profit organization was taking work from others without asking and without notice and making a profit from that sleazy activity. And it is even more shameful that when challenged, they started offering those stolen goodies "free" to all without so much as a thank you to the individuals whose creative efforts had put it together. <BR/><BR/>We know that the wolf is already in the chickenhouse --- but what to do? I appreciate your calm and educated analysis of this situation; I'm learning more than I ever needed to know about property rights in the modern age.<BR/><BR/>Thanks for this series of articles.<BR/><BR/>Terry Thornton<BR/>Hill Country of Monroe County MississippiTerry Thorntonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01251750196282728118noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8224874.post-31885280272693347562007-09-09T17:37:00.000-07:002007-09-09T17:37:00.000-07:00Craig, Thanks for your attempt to bring us all up...Craig, Thanks for your attempt to bring us all up to speed on this important issue. I look forward to your "Fair Use" discussion tomorrow. <BR/><BR/>It is shameful that a large for-profit organization was taking work from others without asking and without notice and making a profit from that sleazy activity. And it is even more shameful that when challenged, they started offering those stolen goodies "free" to all without so much as a thank you to the individuals whose creative efforts had put it together. <BR/><BR/>We know that the wolf is already in the chickenhouse --- but what to do? I appreciate your calm and educated analysis of this situation; I'm learning more than I ever needed to know about property rights in the modern age.<BR/><BR/>Thanks for this series of articles.<BR/><BR/>Terry Thornton<BR/>Hill Country of Monroe County MississippiTerry Thorntonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01251750196282728118noreply@blogger.com