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Stolen FTM report

Stolen FTM report

Posted: 26 Jul 2015 3:56PM GMT
Classification: Query
Edited: 26 Jul 2015 9:17PM GMT
While googling for info about my ancestor I found the following:
http://www.docstoc.com/docs/160xxxxxx/Family-Tree-Maker---Ge...

I have xxx out part of the link for privacy reasons.

The page says that user wufengmei007 has uploaded this doc to docstoc.com. It is a long report of descendants of my ancestor that I created in FTM.

How has wufengmei007 obtained this doc? Why has he/she uploaded it to docstoc.com? It says he has over 10,000 docs in his account. I noticed some other genealogy reports there too in addition to tons of non-genealogy docs.

Could anybody help me with this?

Thank you,
Sally Sinclair

Re: Stolen FTM report

Posted: 26 Jul 2015 4:36PM GMT
Classification: Query
Why: According to Wikipedia this site pays its contributors a share of the advertising revenue generated by visits to their uploaded documents.

How: Probably by harvesting the PDF from your genealogy.com page. Took me about 2 minutes to find it.

Re: Stolen FTM report

Posted: 26 Jul 2015 4:48PM GMT
Classification: Query
I see the link to the PDF is no longer valid on genealogy.com so presumably you deleted it at some point. If there is a copyright notice in the PDF then you could send the site a DMCA takedown request (they probably have information about how to do that on their terms and conditions page). If they get enough of those for docs this sleezebag is posting they might cancel the account.

Re: Stolen FTM report

Posted: 26 Jul 2015 4:49PM GMT
Classification: Query
Edited: 26 Jul 2015 4:50PM GMT
Thank you David. I found it on genealogy.com also and in the process to get it removed.

But how did it get on genealogy.com? I created it in FTM but I'm positive I did not upload this report anywhere to the Internet.

Thank you for your help.

Sally

Re: Stolen FTM report

Posted: 26 Jul 2015 5:58PM GMT
Classification: Query
Did you create the genealogy.com page? I never used that site but since it was called a FamilyTreeMaker page I am guessing you had to upload something from FTM to set it up.

Re: Stolen FTM report

Posted: 26 Jul 2015 6:30PM GMT
Classification: Query
Edited: 26 Jul 2015 6:44PM GMT
This document could have come through a none web source. Have you ever sent this report to another person? There are several of my reports online appearing as attachments to other people trees. Since my genealogy research on my families is not complete, I do not have any online trees or other online presence.

What you found is why I ALWAYS add my name and contact information to everything I share, it does not matter whether it is an original essay on one of my families or a report from Family Tree Marker. If I send something to someone and they post it to their tree, my name is posted with the information.

There is nothing in the PDF Document that could NOT have come from someone else's research including the citations which I believe are from an FTM template. Yes, the information is about your family, but can you prove that no one else has collected the same information and printed the report from their FTM?

I am not an expert on US copywrite law, but I believe that FACTS can not be covered under a copywrite. Relationship, names, dates, and place, are facts. Since the connecting text came from FTM and the only differences are FACTS, there is nothing to copywrite.

As I understand in reports like this, the only thing that could have been covered under a copywrite, are your personal essays about your family. These essays could be in separate files or included in FTM as notes. Again there are no notes in the document.

Finally I did a search for DocStoc, and found the following Wikipedia information.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Docstoc

Re: Stolen FTM report

Posted: 26 Jul 2015 7:49PM GMT
Classification: Query
Edited: 26 Jul 2015 8:08PM GMT
Before Ancestry purchased FTM, FTM used the procedure of folks posting FTM reports (descendant charts, descendant register reports, ahnentafel register reports, etc) to the web as html pages at the genealogy.com site. The capability to upload these pages was stopped sometime after ancestry bought FTM. Then, ancestry brought in the ability to create trees from FTM - which replaced both the old FTM trees on CDs and the uploaded reports at genealogy.com.

For awhile, if you remembered your password, you could still go in and manually "adjust" pages, maybe even delete them. I think they are completely frozen now. Mine are still there - from maybe 15-20 years ago. They are on Ancestry-maintained servers. These old reports sometimes show up in Google results when I am Googling a person of interest for genealogy purposes.



Re: Stolen FTM report

Posted: 26 Jul 2015 9:06PM GMT
Classification: Query
Edited: 26 Jul 2015 9:10PM GMT
Yes I saw on genealogy.com about not being able to edit anymore. I did find a statement that you can email support@genealogy.com and ask them to remove your content. I have just done so. Hope it works. Here is what it says: http://www.genealogy.com/faq/

I have been googling and see that info from my page at genealogy.com has been harvested and spread all over the Internet. I guess there is nothing I can do about all that. Except I did fill out a form on DMCA request form on docstoc asking them to remove the document saying it was copyrighted (even though I don't think it is). Never hurts to try.

I uploaded that report and other info in 2006. Little did I realize the ramifications of doing so. I was naive and had no idea people would harvest it. I knew it was still out there but didn't think anybody except some family would find it. Oh well

Thanks David. And silverfox

Re: Stolen FTM report

Posted: 26 Jul 2015 9:11PM GMT
Classification: Query
Yes I uploaded it way back in 2006. It is so out of date. I never thought through the consequences of doing so.

Re: Stolen FTM report

Posted: 26 Jul 2015 9:15PM GMT
Classification: Query
My name and contact info was on the genealogy.com page. It is way out of date. From 2006. But the person who harvested the doc didn't not transfer my contact info to his docstoc doc.

I know for a fact it was from my page and info because some of the content was known only to me when I posted it. And there are Notes in the report.
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