I find it very annoying when other users take images you have fought long and hard to find and don't even reply to your communications. They also have hidden private trees.
Frankly I find them parasitic.
Do I need to calm down.
K

No, you're not over-sensitive. It's rude to vacuum up photos and information from public trees without contacting the owner. I even contacted one private tree owner who literally downloaded hundreds of my images and asked to have a look-see at her tree. She said, no.

But be forewarned. There will be people along here any minute to beat up on you for expressing your dismay concerning this practice.

That others can copy whatever you post in public MemberTrees is part of the Terms of Service you agreed to when you started a tree. If it is not copyrighted, it basically becomes property of Ancestry.com.

If you post publicly, Ancestry.com has the right to distribute it and any other person who can access what you post has a ~right~ to copy it and (if not copyrighted) do with it whatever they wish. Your tree becomes a "finding aid" for what Ancestry.com is marketing.

Some want it to be viewed as a rather patronizing gift, wanting "thanks" or request-for-permission. Some want 'strings' such as information exchange. Some have suggested requiring access to private trees (without owners' permission) into which such items were copied. None of this is part of the Ancestry.com setup. No one is obligated to be in contact with you or to respond to your contact messages.

If you don't like it, make your tree private, take it elsewhere, and/or don't post what you don't want others to copy.

And that's one reason why more and more people have made their trees private.

I will quibble on one point. Your stuff is still your stuff. Your research does not belong to Ancestry. But I would be shocked if the company did intervene in any meaningful way:

Content which has been contributed to public area of the Ancestry.com Operations, Inc. sites by users remain the property of the submitter or the original creator and we are a licensed distributor of such content. Occasionally, a person may feel that content submitted by a user is their property or is covered by the copyright of someone other than the submitter. Please remember that we are the distributor of user supplied content and the submitter, not MyFamily.com, Inc., is the one who has violated copyright if such a violation has occurred. However, we will respond to substantiated claims of violation. In such a case, the person who believes they have a claim under copyright should send a claim of copyright violation to:

David P. Farnsworth
Copyright Agent for Notice
Ancestry.com Operations, Inc.
360 W 4800 N
Provo, UT 84604
USA

or

Email copyright@myfamilyinc.com

All the following must be included:

- Identification of the copyrighted work claimed to be infringed, and the basis of the claim

- Identification of the material which is claimed to be infringing, including the URL

- Full contact information on the claimed copyright owner or other claimant, (who must have a license which is being infringed or other standing to make the claim.) This should include the name, address, telephone, fax and email information.

- A statement, under penalty of perjury, that the information sent is accurate and the complaining party is the owner or an authorized agent of the owner.

- A physical or electronic signature of the claiming party

When users copy photos/documents from one Ancestry tree to another, they cannot be said to have "taken" or "stolen" anything. Ancestry simply gives them the means to create an internal link between trees. That is how/why you are able to see the ownership trail of these items. It's not as though someone broke into your home and stole your stuff .... you still have it.

Now, on the other hand, if someone downloads "your stuff" to their own computer, that is between you and the downloader. I highly doubt that those folks are lounging around on the Ancestry Site Comments board, waiting to see their name in lights.

So:
a) you have a beef with Ancestry? fuhgeddaboudit!
b) you have a beef with another Ancestry user? Take it up with them, not us.

And finally, a final note of warning: Before you do stir the hornet's nest, make sure that you hold clear copyright to the items in question. Just because someone borrowed/copied/stole "images you have fought long and hard to find" (as the OP said) doesn't make them YOURS.

What you highlight here is intented to protect a.com when a user violates copyright by posting something they do not own the copyright for (for instance, a photo from find-a-grave which they did not take). The copyright holder can not hold a.com liable, but can ask a.com to remove the photo, which they will do.

The section of the TOS that I think is more relevant here is this:

"User provided content: Portions of the Service will contain user provided content, to which you may contribute appropriate content. For this content, Ancestry is a distributor only. By submitting content to Ancestry, you grant Ancestry, the corporate host of the Service, a license to the content to use, host, distribute that Content and allow hosting and distribution of that Content, to the extent and in that form or context we deem appropriate. Should you contribute content to the site, you understand that it will be seen and used by others under the license described herein. You should submit only content which belongs to you and will not violate the property or other rights of other people or organizations. Ancestry is sensitive to the copyright of others. For more concerning copyright issues, view our corporate policy. We will not edit or monitor user provided content, with the exception that, to promote privacy, an automated filtering tool will be used to suppress, and omit from display, information submitted to the tree areas of the site which appears to pertain to a living person. We also reserve the right to remove any user provided content that comes to our attention and that we believe, in our sole discretion, is illegal, obscene, indecent, defamatory, incites racial or ethnic hatred or violates the rights of others, or is in any other way objectionable."

And from the community guidelines:

"Important Note: Any information you post in our community is public and can be copied, modified and distributed by others. By submitting or posting content in our community, you expressly grant Ancestry.com Operations Inc. the rights set forth in the terms and conditions."

Essentially, what you post to a public tree can be copied by any user of a.com. Period. As frostfreedet said, if that's a problem for someone they need to rethink what they attach to their public tree or whether their tree should be public at all.

The part that I see as the main issue here is that you say that you found the item. Finding it may not mean owning it. Did you find a copy online or at a museum? You are not the owner. Did you find it in your attic or purchase it. You may indeed be the owner of the the physical photo. However, just like owning the physical copy of a book does not mean you have the rights that a copyright owner has. You may or may not be the copyright holder. It could be public domain or copyrighted by someone else. There can also be multiple copies. There are many long and involved threads on this that you may want to look at.

What makes your situation more questionable is that you say you found it. Finding something on ancestry or anywhere online does not make you the owner of it.

That said, I do think tree owners should have a few more options, than we currently have.

You are not being overly sensitive, many of us feel the same as you

Although the above posters comments regarding copyright are accurate, it stills feels as if someone stole your homework that you worked so hard on, and turned it in as theirs

Lesson learned: stop leaving your homework lying around and lock your tree. A locked tree does not mean you won't share, but they will have to ask first and it allows you to flesh those who are simply data mining vs genuine researchers/relataives

You use the word stole.

Until it is clearer where the item came from, this is like saying that someone who found money on a desk is the rightful owner of the money.

Most of our posters concerned about photo issues have taken the photos themselves, or inherited a copy, etc. This person only states that he found it.

If you are really that curious, I recommend that you contact the original poster to see how the pictures were obtained, or allow the orignal poster to clarify vs drumming up another scenario and extracting a single word

BTW...the sentence "it feels as if...."