It ain’t over until the fat lady sings…. or at least until Craig
Manson, attorney and law professor, [actually he’s done a bit more than that] publishes his legal analysis of the
IBC controversy on his blog at Geneablogie.
In part I (link directly below) Craig writes about the facts of the controversy,
and touches on basic copyright law and precedence. In Part II he moves on to the actual legal analysis. These four articles are a MUST READ for online genealogists, web site owners
and bloggers.
**Geneablogie’s 5 Posts on Ancestry & Copyright Law**
(You should really read all of these in the proper order)
–Did Ancestry Violate the Copyright Law?… Prologue (Part I)–
—Part 2— —Part 3— —Part 4— —Part 5—
What is the IBC Controversy you may be thinking….. it was controversy that arose in response to the
Ancestry.com offering a “database” product, composed of cached
genealogy-related web sites and blogs (including my own), to their paid
subscribers.
The online genealogy community apparently went wild. Some people wrote
to ancestry.com, posted on various message boards, or contacted
Ancestry.com’s copyright attorney.
Within two days Ancestry.com had ALSO made this “database” free (but
they also kept it as an option to paid subscribers). Within another day
they had “removed” the database. And within still another day
Ancestry.com announced the collection had been removed permanently.
My take on the controversy, as it happened, in the form of three posts on this blog:
–Ancestry.com Hijacks Cow Hampshire–
–Ancestry.com Puts the Cows Back in the Barn (For Now)-
-Ancestry.com’s Internet Biographical Collection Removed Permanently–
Another more recent post you may enjoy is: Meum et Teum…Mine and Thine!
Janice
