There's been a lot of upset, and in some cases outrage, about the changes announced by Ancestry (www.ancestry.co.uk) with regards to its terms and conditions, as announced a couple of days ago (see https://scottishgenes.blogspot.com/2021/08/ancestry-updates-terms-and-conditions.html).
Ancestry has essentially announced that it asserts a right to continue to use any user uploaded material to its site, even if the subscriber no longer subscribes. In essence it is now demanding an irrevocable and perpetual license to do so, should you subscribe to its site. The Legal Genealogist, Judy Russell, has (as always!) explained it well at
https://www.legalgenealogist.com/2021/08/04/one-big-change-at-ancestry/. You have a few weeks to remove your content if you are not happy before this kicks in.
On reading a lot of social media posts, there seems to be some confusion about what this means. Ancestry is not taking ownership of your material, and it is not taking the copyright. What it is doing is asserting a never-ending right of use to your material. That does not stop you doing what you like with your images, documents, etc. You can place them on other sites, you can publish them as you like, you can share with your family, etc. In essence, it is an extension of where Ancestry was at before on this - so long as you were a subscriber, it asserted a similar right.
The following is from my recent book Sharing Your Family History Online:
The issue of copyright
and ownership of material is separate to the terms and conditions
which may be present on a platform to which you add information. On
Ancestry's UK platform, for example, its terms and conditions
(www.ancestry.co.uk/cs/legal/termsandconditions), at the time
of writing, state that
You
always maintain ownership of your data, but we need the ability to
use your data for the purposes set out in our Privacy Statement and
these Terms, and, if you agree to it, in our Informed Consent to
Research.
It also adds that
As
we are constantly striving to improve the Services we provide you,
your data may be used to enhance our existing user experience or to
develop new products and services. Unless expressly stated otherwise,
each new feature that we add to the Services will also be subject to
these Terms.
Ancestry further states
that you can, at any time, request that it deletes your data and
account. In summary, though, whilst you remain the owner of your
data, in agreeing to submit your data to Ancestry's platform, it
asserts a right to use it as noted above.
What Ancestry has announced is a controversial evolution of this, to say that it now wants to assert a perpetual and irrevocable right to do so.
But it seems they may be slightly backtracking now, in response to the outrage being felt amongst users. In a blog update at https://www.ancestry.com/corporate/blog/making-our-terms-and-conditions-clearer-modifications-our-august-2021-update, they have now announced the following:
...by submitting User Provided Content through any of the Services,
you grant Ancestry a perpetual, sublicensable, worldwide, non-revocable,
royalty-free license to host, store, copy, publish, distribute, provide
access to, create derivative works of, and otherwise use such User
Provided Content to the extent and in the form or context we deem
appropriate on or through any media or medium and with any technology or
devices now known or hereafter developed or discovered. This includes
the right for Ancestry to copy, display, and index your User Provided
Content. Ancestry will own the indexes it creates. Notwithstanding
the non-revocable and perpetual nature of this license, it terminates
when your User Provided Content is deleted from our systems. Be aware
that to the extent you elected to make your User Provided Content
“public” and other users copied or saved it to the Services, this
license continues until the content has been deleted both by you and the
other users.*
As genealogist Amy Johnson Crow (@AmyJohnsonCrow) has just tweeted "The license terminates “when your User Provided Content is deleted from our systems.” *But*, if you made it public and someone else saved it, they continue to claim license even if you delete it."
What this all reinforces is something else that I have mentioned in my book, which applies to all such data sites:
All major genealogy
sites will have their own terms and conditions listed, and so it is
always worth first consulting these before taking out a subscription
to make sure that you are happy to comply with them.
This really should be a golden rule for you on any site you may wish to subscribe to. If you are unhappy with a site's Terms and Conditions, you are not compelled to sign up. With all such platforms, always be aware that you are not their main priority. They exist as businesses to make money, that is their priority.
The key question for subscribers is how far are you willing to cede some of your 'ancestral sovereignty' to pursue your own goals in family history? How far will you speculate to accumulate through the use of such sites? The rewards may be wholeseome if you do, but the companies offering you the chance to use their platforms are not doing it for the good of your health! We always need to weigh the pros against the cons when it comes to subscribing.
On a personal level I have never shared my images on Ancestry, or any site, but I do share my trees and information about my ancestors. If some corporation thinks they will become rich beyond their wildest dreams over the fact I have uploaded the story of my ancestor John Smyth (yeah, we all have one!), good luck to them - it wasn't them I was thinking about when I uploaded my story. It's a trade off. Ultimately, if you are unhappy with any company's terms and conditions, then don't subscribe - that is absolutely your right not to, and there is no obligation to do so. There are other sites, and other means of making connections (and I discuss a few of these in my book).
The whole relationship between subscribers and providers is a constantly evolving one, not least with other issues now emerging such as digital legacy, i.e. who owns your content when you die, and how you bequeath your digital estate after death. What the big data providers offer are tools to help with your research, but as a subscriber you need to know what it is that you are subscribing to, and what your rights are. Only you can make the decision about what will then work best for you.
* Another interesting perspective on this is a post by Elaine Jackson at https://ancestors-reunited.com/2021/08/05/test/.
(My book Sharing Your Family History Online discusses many of these issues - it is available from Pen and Sword at https://www.pen-and-sword.co.uk/Sharing-Your-Family-History-Online-Paperback/p/18718)
Chris
Just out, Sharing Your Family History Online is on sale at https://bit.ly/SharingFamHist. Tracing Your Scottish Family History on the Internet, at http://bit.ly/ChrisPaton-Scottish2 is also out, as are Tracing Your Irish Family History on the Internet (2nd ed) at http://bit.ly/ChrisPaton-Irish1 and Tracing Your Scottish Ancestry Through Church and State Records at http://bit.ly/ChrisPaton-Scotland1. Further news published daily on The Scottish GENES Facebook page, and on Twitter @genesblog.
