License term change
The date on the newly-updated terms and conditions at Ancestry.com still reads 3 August 2021.
But there was a change made after that date.
According to Ancestry now, users who upload content to Ancestry still give Ancestry a perpetual and non-revocable license to use the content.
But, it says now, “perpetual and non-revocable” doesn’t mean “perpetual and non-revocable.”
Those last two sentences in the image above have been added to the end of section 2.2.3 now:
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.1
So as of now you can change your mind and delete your content and Ancestry will respect your decision. But if you delete something you shared publicly, Ancestry gets to keep using it until anyone who copied or saved it on Ancestry also deletes it. Ancestry will not take down all other copies of whatever you uploaded that other users are using.
This clarifies the biggest question that people had as reflected in questions posed to this blog: what about materials attached to private trees? As long as the materials are not public and shared, deleting the content terminates the license granted to Ancestry.
A retreat, yes, in part. And a caution: read terms of service. Don’t just click through. And use caution in choosing what to share online — and how.
Cite/link to this post: Judy G. Russell, “Ancestry retreats,” The Legal Genealogist (https://www.legalgenealogist.com/blog : posted 6 Aug 2021).
SOURCES
- ¶ 2.2.3, “Ownership of Your Content” in “Ancestry Terms and Conditions,” effective 3 Aug 2021, Ancestry.com (https://www.ancestry.com/ : accessed 6 Aug 2021). ↩
So, is the revoked part of a non-revocable license revocable again in future? Given that they added a sentence that can be readily excised at whim, rather than actually, you know… removing the offending paragraph to rework the text, it seems to me this one is going to require vigilant attention.
Or, it’s is just intellectually lazy.
Take your pick.
I personally would recommend new drafting lawyers… but that’s just me. 🙂
What about photos that were posted on August 3rd 2021. Would those photos be subject to these new rules? Even if I deleted them, could ancestry still use them? Also, when is the dead line to delete photos that were posted before this date? And what rights does ancestry exactly have with my photos?
Nobody except Ancestry can tell you how Ancestry will interpret its terms. You need to evaluate the language of the terms of service against your concerns and make your own judgment as to what you really want to have online at a commercial service you do not control — and where terms of service can always be changed.
I’m still confused about photos attached to private trees and not “public and shared.” Can Ancestry use them or not?
There is wiggle room in the terms of use and I can’t tell you what might happen down the road. Clearly you must give Ancestry some license or it can’t host the materials at all. What it can do under the license it asserts appears to be a little vague. I’d suggest that you ask Ancestry exactly what it means by “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”.
I was curious to see what FamilySearch’s terms of use are. Under “License and Rights Granted to Us,” it states that “…you hereby grant us with an unrestricted, fully paid-up, royalty-free, worldwide, irrevocable, sublicensable, and perpetual license to use any and all information, content, and other materials…that you submit…for any and all purposes.” Is this any different from Ancestry’s updated terms and conditions? It looks the same to me.
It is the same, as I wrote eight years ago in Sharing is forever. The differences: (a) FamilySearch’s terms make its purpose of sharing crystal clear (“You acknowledge that a primary purpose of this site is to enable collaboration between users of this site and other sites who wish to expand their genealogical databases and knowledge. You acknowledge that we may utilize Contributed Content, including any personal information of living individuals, that you submit for the purpose of collaborating and sharing with other individuals and organizations (including commercial genealogical organizations) in order, for example, to create a global common pedigree for the purposes of increasing participation in family history and preserving records throughout the world. You acknowledge that collaboration between multiple individuals and organizations allows us to obtain additional data that we may provide to users of this site—thus allowing users to extend their own ancestral lines”); (b) FamilySearch is free; and (c) FamilySearch is non-commercial.
I have to believe that if the photos copyrighted then the owner still owns the photo and not Ancestry or Family Search. Abrogating your right and ownership of a copyrighted image would most likely take a court of law decision or they could just terminate your membership. Personal property is still personal, but the owner can determine if they wish to share not a 3rd party making profit of of something that the would not have if it wasn’t for a member. Just my 2 cents.
The copyright owner has abrogated that copyright in part by licensing it to Ancestry in the upload process. ANY image can be licensed, and that’s what this does.
It sounds to me that material in Private Trees is still private from other users, but accessible and usable by Ancestry the company.
Also if you share material and your entire tree to another member, who copies that material into their own public tree, you cannot remove your material from the third persons tree.
If you have material you don’t want to be public, don’t put it it ANYWHERE on the WWW.
Yet I’ve always felt that if you want to find lost cousins, you have to consider revealing yourself to the world.
Thanks for the update – I had contacted Ancestry along with many others. Good to see they have “clarified” what they meant. That said, I removed photos of living and recently deceased members of my family and will not bother uploading them again. The majority of the other photos have been shared by others researching common ancestors or copied from my tree by cousins, so deleting them at this point would be pointless.
Thanks for your explanation and then update on the clarification. Call me naïve, but I have assumed that because ancestry (any of the tree databases, I think) doesn’t let anyone see the information for that living person, it was safe for me to put pictures of my living (immediate only) family in my tree, because only I could see it. But obviously, it’s there, in the database, so could my mother or one of my sisters show up in an ancestry ad?
You should pose that question to Ancestry. I would hope not, no, but the way the terms are written, it isn’t precluded. (I’ve said it before, what Ancestry needs is better lawyers…)
Are photos of people the only things we should delete, or should I also remove Grandpa’s draft card, vessel passage, and marriage license that I have attached to his file? Will making my tree private rather than public help? I keep re-reading all the legal stuff, but I don’t know if it makes sense to me. I’m really not trying to be simple-minded about this…
Think about (a) where the info came from (an Ancestry document? why bother? it’s on the service — but if from a family member who might object, different analysis); and (b) what the interests are (you want others to find and share the item or you want to protect it for a reason you can articulate).
This is what happens when they get bought out by another company.
Could be. (They still need better lawyers.)
Thinking more like when Google created it’s parent company (Alphabet) Instead of all of them being acquisitions of Google, now its a collection of separate companies, owned by a new holding company. Probably provides some legal/liability benefits. Whos knows, maybe Ancestry is doing the same thing with all the companies they have snatched up? It’s also pretty squirrely to issue revised policies without revision controls (still too confusing IMO). The net net is they are indemnified for just about everything and you have no real recourse to hold them accountable. User supplied data makes no differentiation between public and private content. You added it If it seeps into public trees it’s not their fault. Once it’s out there , oh well. Holding mega corps accountable for anything these days is near impossible.
the ancestry brand was purchased by an investment company that often either breaks up companies or repurposes them. Selling data is the world’s biggest business today, fueling google, amazon, facebook, apple. This investment company now owns the world’s largest collection of the most intimate data – DNA. Add A.I. and see what comes out to exploit.
Thank you for the update. I teach a genealogy class in an academic library. While our library does not have a paid subscription to Ancestry, many student and community users do use Ancestry through paid subscriptions available through their local public libraries, state libraries, and genealogical society libraries.
Since most U.S. libraries adhere to ALA Guidelines, I am interested in knowing your opinion concerning this change in policy, and how it might impact protecting patrons information and adherence to ALA guidelines on privacy.
https://www.ala.org/advocacy/privacy/toolkit/corevalues
Thank you.
I can only suggest that (a) you consult with the attorneys for the library to review the library policy versus this policy (I suspect that uploads from library computers are limited in the first place which may very well limit the impact of this provision) and (b) ensure that patrons are advised that uploading to any website under any conditions may grant rights to the website and that it’s their responsibility and obligation to ensure that they have read and understand the terms of use of the website. Libraries (and librarians) can’t be the terms-of-use police.
The version of Ancestry used by public libraries etc is called InstitutionAncestry and is a cut down version of the product normal members can access (whether standard or premium members). InstitutionAncestry does not allow the creation of trees or the uploading of user data. It also does not allow users to contact the owners of trees, be they either public or private. Obviously, photographs and other data can be extracted from existing public trees by InstitutionAncestry users.
I believe there are also limitations on the geographical scope and on access to certain collections, based on the type of licence each library acquires.
On that basis I can’t see the particular t&cs under discussion having much relevance to users of the Institution version.
I am contacting Ancestry–again–and letting them know this is not good enough. Another person cannot give them the rights to use my personal media and product. If I delete it by the deadline, that should let them know that I do not want them to have the license to use my personal media I deleted in any way they wish, no matter what other tree it is attached to.
In fact, the more I think about it, this is not a retreat at all, but makes the situation worse.
If you don’t give them any rights to your stuff, then they can’t host it, can’t back it up, can’t show it on the .co.uk site if you loaded it on the .com site (possibly). They have to have some rights to provide you with the service you want.
Thank you for the information. Disgusted……..
I use Family Tree Maker 2019 software for my genealogy database. It is set up to synchronize with Ancestry.com so I have to spend less time with data entry. In Family Tree Maker, “any facts, notes or media marked as ‘Private’ are not uploaded to Ancestry.com.” I have not looked into RootsMagic (it allows synchronization, too) but people using these two software may be able to keep private media in their own offline databases and still synchronize their trees without that private media being uploaded to Ancestry.com.
Connie – I also use FTM and intend to mark my media as Private and remove from my Ancestry trees.. The only issue I have is all my invited guests won’t see any media once I do that. They have no interest at all in learning how to use FTM but are quite happy to go online to view the media etc on there. I also wonder how they can impose those terms and conditions when it contravenes the laws in other countries.
I use AncestralQuest, it allows me to choose whether to share or not. I have many photos in my own program not shared due to a previous incident, however, we do need to be careful and read the terms. Take extra measures and think before uploading. Unfortunately, it gets all overwhelming on top of all else, one more thing to be extra careful and watchful. Thanks Judy for your help!
I am pleased that my info including bios and photos on Ancestry will not be deleted. I am happy to share with cousins and with my grandchildren when they get old enough to care about their ancestors. I wouldn’t want all this work I have done to be deleted when I die and stop oaying them. The whole point is to share the accurate research.
Thank you for the update. I just deleted all of the photos and documents that I had uploaded (thankfully not many since I had only just started). I went back and looked at the trees of others who had saved my photos to their trees and it appears they are no longer on those trees either (although they are still showing up in search results but do not link to the photo). So, it appears that as long as the other user only ‘saved’ it to their tree rather than downloaded and re-uploaded it, deleting it from your files will work. However, if they downloaded the image, you are out of luck if they share it elsewhere.
I don’t like having to do this, as I enjoy sharing with relatives and putting a face to the people in my tree. However, I am not okay with a company having that much say over using and potentially profiting off of my family’s photos, especially without any recognition or compensation. I don’t think I’ll be sharing my photos on any of these sites until the users are given a say – when we can set the terms of using our content, which let’s face isn’t going to happen anytime soon, if ever.
I suspect that Ancestry has the best lawyers money can buy and the nebulousness of the language is perfectly intentional.
What about the notes you have in your trees?
You will have to ask Ancestry what it will and won’t use and for what purposes.
This is only a partial retreat, isn’t it? I hold copyright to my mother’s pics (as I have UK POA and old EPA, she is alive at 94 and has all marbles), which were uploaded by a relative 10 years ago, who was sent a copy by mother 65 years ago.
Various other people have put this photo on their trees (often with no real relationship to us), so I would have to chase every one of them to demand that they remove this pic.
What do you think I might do? Would there be differences as image was uploaded to Anc ,co.uk, not .com`?
Thanks for being on the case!
Copyrighted materials are different. As owner of the copyright you can require any website to which they were uploaded by anyone who doesn’t have a similar legal entitlement to that copyright (e.g. a co-heir) to take them down.
Is there any chance that a class action lawsuit could stop this? I really have a problem with a for profit company (that I’m already paying hundreds of dollars to) claiming license to my photos for their possible use to make them more money.
No. The terms of service bar class actions.
Thank you Judy. As always, your generosity in sharing your knowledge on these and other matters is very much appreciated. I deleted all my media files from Ancestry yesterday using Family Tree Maker’s sync function.
It is your impression that “private trees, including photos on them” will be safe from these changes? I can’t get through to Ancestry and from past experience, I don’t trust the representatives to actually understand what is going on and not just read me something from a script they have been provided.
Nobody can speak for Ancestry except Ancestry. I can only tell you that these are very very broad grants of rights.
All of this reinforces what I have known for decades: Corporations in America have WAY too much power over people (individually or as a group), most of which violates our constitutional rights, especially our right to privacy. Worse: Congress gave corporations the power to use, abuse, and misuse that power and won’t end corporate dominance over us.
That includes Ancestry (and other corporations like it) who appropriate our work for their corporate profit. Many of us try very hard to accurately document our genealogies and do not copy inaccurate information from others. We love to share information, but that does not give Ancestry (and other corporations like it) the right to profit off of our private work and then claim ownership of our work. Legally that is what has happened, but it is morally wrong at the very least and should be legally wrong, too.
Corporate power over individuals (for genealogy purposes and otherwise) needs to be revoked!!!
This is the nugget that bothers me the most; that Ancestry can potentially profit from my work—my time, my analysis, etc. I have so, so much work on Ancestry. I like the community aspect and have found it richly rewarding more than once. But then the corporation behind the community ruins everything out of greed for more, more, more and off the labor of other people.
This is precisely why I never will put my tree on Ancestry or any other site. If I find someone who is directly linked I will initially contact them to further our conversation offline. As well as that, being a well qualified experienced genealogist too many trees that I’ve discovered with possible links to me have not done their research properly and I’m sick and tired of trying to correct them as they possibly ignor me. I have physical proof of my research so I know my tree is correct. Another reason possibly linked to my comment above I will not publish my tree on any family history site as I do not want my expensive hard work (26 years) copied and plagiarised by amateurs.
I have absolutely no problem with having my TREE online. I want others to learn from me (and my mistakes) and I want to learn from others (and their mistakes). Trees are just names and dates and places. The issue is really other materials like photos, stories and more.
I don’t understand why this is a problem….nothing here restricts my use of material I’ve submitted.
The issue is whether you like the idea of a corporation having unlimited permanent rights to use that material any way it wants. If that sits well with you, then there isn’t a problem.
Isn’t the whole of a tree made up of media and data? If I eliminated the media and data, what might be left?
The pure factual data — names and dates and places — can be considered distinct from media or articles you uploaded.
Thank you, Judy. I will consider my DNA Bare Bones Tree to be safe.
I certainly have no intention of taking down my bare bones tree! I don’t ever upload anything I don’t expect to be public and shared all over the place, and … sigh … I do read terms of service before I upload.
There is another choice. MyHeritage.com. Maybe at some future point Ancestry’s greed will implode. I think I’m going to delete media on my Ancestry tree through the 3rd generation. My tree at Ancestry is large and I rarely find new information, so paying more attention to building my tree at MyHeritage will be a better idea.
Make sure you read the terms of service there (and anywhere) as well. MyHeritage also requires the grant of a wide license, the difference is that it is revocable.
So, should I put a big watermark that covers most of the image? That’d make it OK for other users on Ancestry to use, but makes it harder for Ancestry to re-use it for other uses?
Each of us will have to decide what (if anything) to do with materials uploaded. Or, perhaps, factor it in to the decision whether to upload.
I have many, many screen shots of what is probably copyrighted material, i.e. Coat of Arms, photos from Wikipedia of churches, abbeys, excerpts from books and articles, etc.. Since my tree is private and unsearchable I never thought it would be a problem. But now, am I giving Ancestry the right to use these images and put myself at risk in doing so?
One of the exclusive rights given to a copyright owner is the right to determine what copies can be made of his or her works. Any copying without permission can expose a person to risk.
Adding to my earlier post on this issue (Terms and Conditions updating User Provided Content). What about in Terms and Conditions, 2.2.2 User Provided Content: “you are solely responsible for your User Provided Content”. If I make my tree private and unsearchable, and Ancestry publishes or does whatever it is they are going to do with it my user provided content, doesn’t that take away the verbiage that I am “solely responsible”? What I mean to ask is, if I have a screen shot that is not my artwork or such (ex: coat of arms from Wikipedia), wouldn’t Ancestry be taking this “responsibility” away from me when they, for instance, publish it or use it for profit in some way against my control?
Thank you Judy, I was composing my second post while you were responding.
Liability for copyright infringement is personal. You can’t transfer your liability for doing something the copyright laws don’t permit to somebody else. If your action of putting it online at Ancestry is an infringement, it doesn’t stop being an infringement because Ancestry also does something with what you uploaded. If it’s not an infringement, then there’s nothing to be concerned about. If it’s not an infringement to have it in a private unsearchable tree, and Ancestry then does something outside the private unsearchable environment, the question could come down to whether you agreed to that (in which case you would share liability with Ancestry). How would this play out in the real world and what are your rights and obligations? Only a lawyer licensed in your jurisdiction can advise you. All I can say is that everybody ought to be thinking long and hard about using a commercial service as a repository for the copyrighted works of other people.
Thanks Judy. That makes sense. I’ve got to get to work in my media gallery now!
I also wanted to add, in case any of your followers on this blog don’t know this, but for the most part, all of the images I have uploaded I check first to make sure they are okay for non-commercial use. To do so when you do a Google search, look at Images, there is a category that says “type of use” or something like that. This may be helpful to someone.
“it terminates when your User Provided Content is deleted from our systems.” Does anything say that they will delete “User Provided Content”?
I closed my Account with Heritage when I realized they were an Israeli based Corporation, subject the laws of Israel, and not the Copywrite Laws of the USA, even though they have become a far more expansive and effective technology “giant” in the arena of worldwide Genealogy, including their wide reaching DNA wing.
There is a very strong copyright law in Israel, its terms are similar to those of the United States and it’s a signatory to both the Berne Treaty (international copyright agreement) and the WIPO Copyright Treaty (WCT). That’s plenty good enough for me.
The Blackstone Group new owns Ancestry.com. It also has invested in companies that are obliterating the Amazon rainforest.
I do not care if they use any photos I add to my tree. Likewise, I am free to use any of the photos or materials I find on the Ancestry website, as I pay for this service. This is the best place I know of to share family photos, otherwise we may never see them. Looks like everyone is getting their panties in a knot to me, so what is the big deal. If you do not want to share, do not put your photos on Ancestry.
I only have 1 photo that I want to remove. I “deleted” it from my tree & gallery, and the only other person who added it to their tree deleted it as well. However, a “thumbnail” photo of it still shows up in Ancestry’s “Search” so it still exists in their database after all! I’ve spoken with and emailed Ancestry about this, but it still remains. Is there any way I can remove it from showing up in “Search”? If not, then it means that there really is NO way to remove photos from Ancestry’s licensing!
I suspect it has to run through a refresh cycle (whatever the tech term is for that) before it will be fully removed.
It strikes me that nobody owns the past. Living persons from oneself and back 3 generations should be privacy-protected, but beyond that we should think about the common law trust “Rule Against Perpetuities” as a framework for accessing and owning our shared heritage. As a society we are schizophrenic. On the one hand we obsess about branding, Influencers, likes and celebrity, aspiring to awards, medals, money and other symbols of status and success, and an the other quite the opposite. I am stoked to discover otherwise ordinary ancestors who never made the history books, or even the local press, yet nonetheless lived productive and significant lives. I am happy to be able to bring them alive for any descendants or relatives, and to learn history through the small details and remnants of their lives.
Most of us are happy to share information but may not wish to indiscriminately grant unlimited licenses for family photos or documents to a commercial entity.
Are there any genealogy sites that are safer than Ancestry; ie don’t take unlimited licenses for photos, etc.
You’d have to check the terms of use on any site you’re thinking about using.
Sorry, but I still am not getting this. If I delete my personal pics/documents that I do not want Ancestry controlling, then they do not have access to them? However, others have copied them into their trees, so Ancestry does or does not have use of those pics/documents anyway? Bottom line is do I even bother deleting items because it comes across to me that Ancestry has the existing ones no matter what I do; just don’t add new ones?
If you have uploaded documents publicly, and they’ve been copied by others, they’re now permanently licensed to Ancestry.
Thanks Judy for your insights !