People stealing things off your tree?

[S128]

Hello

Not too sure if i'm being a little pathetic or if I'm right in my feelings.

I had a distant Cousin contact me through Ancestry, we share a set of Great Great Great Grandparents. Which Is fine, I let him view my tree but then I have found he has screen-shotted my pictures and then re-uploaded them as his own, pictures of my Mother, Father, Grand-parents and Great- Grandparents. There's dozens of pictures that I have spent a great deal of time restoring and also images I have shared on here to be restored. He has copy and pasted a story word for word that I wrote about one of my ancestors and then passed it off as his own..... This story took me years to put together and involved a lot of research and visits to London to find out what happened to said person.

He knows how to use the 'add to my tree' option as he's done it with 3 other images but the dozen other and the story he's re-uploaded as his own. 

If I ever take anything from some else's tree I will always ask and always make sure the person who I originally got the information from is credited.

Am I being pathetic or would it slightly anger you also?

Thanks

[Flattybasher9]

The moral of this tale is, if it annoys you, do not share.

You can always take photographs of total strangers and add them to your tree, claiming they are a relative who they really are not. Let him/her copy them, set your tree as private and then remove them.

Malky

[mike175]

...
You can always take photographs of total strangers and add them to your tree, claiming they are a relative who they really are not. Let him/her copy them ...

I like that idea 

Sadly, whatever the legal position, once you have posted anything online it is effectively in the public domain and anyone can copy it, plagiarise it as their own work, or re-post it elsewhere. Most of us will have been victims of this at some time, and there seems little we can do but learn by our mistakes and only post images we are happy to share.

I have to confesss I have copied pictures of distant relatives from genealogy sites ( I might have to re-think that after Malky's post  ), but purely for my own use. I wouldn't dream of re-posting them without permission from the original owner.

Mike.

[Jonlouisville77]

I don't really see why it's a big deal, as long as they aren't profiting in some way from it. I mean, technically it's usually some long dead relative who actually OWNED the images and stories. Obviously, I get S121's point and realize that it's rude to not credit someone for their efforts, especially if there's an actual proper name attached to it instead of just a username.

[louisa maud]

In my opinion it is good manners to ask first

Louisa Maud

[Pheno]

I must admit that generally I have given up asking as every time I did so the response was always yes of course you can copy the image to your own tree and they seemed to think I was a bit odd for asking.

After all the images are on public trees - if they didn't want them copied I would have thought they would have kept the tree private.

Modified to add that I am only talking about photos and as my tree is private I am not uploading them to a public domain neither am I claiming ownership.

Pheno

[Jebber]

I have copied without asking but kept them only on my computer for my person record, I wouldn’t dream of publishing them on an online tree, or passing them on to someone else without asking permission.

If I had my tree online, which I don’t, and published my own pictures, I would copyright them, so that would be obvious to anyone else.

[Kiltpin]

I have copied without asking but kept them only on my computer for my person record, I wouldn’t dream of publishing them on an online tree, or passing them on to someone else without asking permission.

If I had my tree online, which I don’t, and published my own pictures, I would copyright them, so that would be obvious to anyone else.

Just picking up your point, Jebber, how would you copyright them? Do you mean a watermark, if so how would you do this?

Regards

 Chas

[Jebber]

Just picking up your point, Jebber, how would you copyright them? Do you mean a watermark, if so how would you do this?

Regards

 Chas

Yes Chas, watermark right  across the the picture diagonally,  most photo imaging programs have the  facility to do this. You should be able to do so as prominently or faintly as you wish.

I do so  when emailing images to people I don't know and am not sure how trustworthy they are, obviously I don't do so trusted contacts.

I learned my lesson a long time ago, when I sent someone  transcriptions I had made of some handwritten documents, I later found them  on line passed off as the recipients work. I knew it was my work because the  originals are in my possession and have never been in the public domain.