Digital Rights
I just saw an interesting message on the PhpGedView Help forum. It reads:
If any of you are like me and would prefer people visit your site rather than just assume they can take your data without your knowledge with PVGAgent, please read this
http://www.dftproject.org/wiki/PGVAgent
I’m not really sure how to respond to this. I certainly don’t want people to feel like their genealogical data is being stolen without their knowledge. It seems to me that an administrator will be just as aware of the information a visitor obtains through PGVAgent as through a web browser, namely the date/time, the IP, and the URL. On the other hand, I can understand that an administrator might want visitors to obtain the data only through the particular presentation he or she has prepared, especially if that presentation includes advertising (this particular administrator’s website does not).
So what should be done about this, if anything at all? One approach might be to establish an API contract wherein an administrator can indicate how much information should be displayable to the user, while the remainder can still be used for inference. This would allow Genesis to correctly rank search results but, instead of showing details, display a link to the original website. I’m not sure if this is really the best thing to do, however. It really goes against the whole idea of the semantic web, in my opinion. Furthermore, third-party plug-ins for Genesis could not be prevented from breaking this contract. Perhaps I should just accept that there will always be some detractors, for whatever private reason they may hold. Any thoughts?
Filed in Genesis, PGVAgent
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It’s late, I’m grumpy (just finished my taxes, phew…) so whoever reads this, apply the usual grain of salt :-).
I suppose this person has issues with Google and other search engines slurping down his data too. In my book, if you don’t want others taking it, don’t put it online (or at least password-protect it, turn the API off, whatever).
That kind of response just rubs me the wrong way. Genealogy is all about sharing information. About disseminating the truth about our family history as we discover it. Now if someone were going to slurp down his data to republish it as their own research, then yes, there’s a problem with that. But someone slurping down the data to potentially connect this person’s data with their own, using a sophisticated tool such as you’re developing, that’s exactly what putting genealogical data on the Internet is for–establishing contact with other researchers interested in the same lines.
I agree largely with Dan. But… people don’t like it when they see there work appearing on other sites without good source citatations, attribution or just a simple thank you. People might think the PVGAgent is just another simple way to copy all. Most people won’t even know about the PVGAgent and the webservice in phpGedView! And, the distinction in presentation layer won’t be understood by all.
What to do?
Clearly communicate what the purpose of the PVGAgent is, make it feel good, take away possible fears. Maybe even, tell people how the can “opt-out”…
Secondly I think we have to educate people how to make good use of information from others, obtained via website, Genenis, of other means. I always advise people to:
- give attribution, document (and publish) the source of genealogical data!
- ask the author permission to use data, usually the author doesn’t mind, and usually the contact leads to more exhange!
- only use the data once you have checked in at the source (the archive)!
To highlight the above I have even ‘disabled’ the right mouse button on http://www.genealogieonline.nl/ A user is presented with a sort of copyright notice and the advice stated above. This won’t stop “bad people” to just copy the data, so everybody should be aware of this, but it is just another moment for me to “educate”.
I suppose it will help when source information is more prominent in the user interface. Then I can emphasize the fact in the PGVAgent description. I’m just pleased to learn that I’m not too far off base.
I agree. It is the website owners’ responsibility to take precautions and care to withhold that information which he sees as his own research. (Although it was his ancestors first!) Hilton, it’s about education. Let this user know that he can turn off the API on his site. Give the right tools in PGV to make sure that it is not leaking out anything that the site owner doesn’t want. That will suffice for the masses. Then just ignore all the rest of us. ;)