Showing posts with label legal issues. Show all posts
Showing posts with label legal issues. Show all posts

Sunday, December 27, 2009

Another Belated Saturday Night Fun - The Best Genealogy Gift

I am late again in posting my response for this past Saturday's Saturday Night Fun, but I'm going to participate anyway. For this Saturday Night Fun, Randy has challenged other genealogy bloggers to write about their best genealogy Christmas gift. So, what was the best genealogy gift I got?

Well, the gift was a history book, The History of Michigan Law edited by Paul Finkelman and Martin J. Hershock (Athens, Ohio: Ohio University Press, 2006). As you can tell, from the title, the book is on the history of Michigan's laws, although the articles in the book look primarily at important aspects of Michigan law and looks at the law from a social history standpoint. Okay, so the book isn't exactly a genealogy gift, but the articles in the book might assist a genealogist doing research in Michigan. If a research has knowledge of the history of a local area's laws, that researcher may be able to determine if there are any records that might provide potential leads. I haven't had too much time to look at the book, but there appears to be several articles that might be useful in my future research.

(Note, 27 February 2010: I have finally finished this Saturday Night Fun post. I also completed another backlogged Saturday Night Fun post earlier this year, and you can read it here. Enjoy!)

Thursday, October 8, 2009

Genealogy and History Thoughts Column 19 - My Thoughts on the New FTC Blogging Guidelines

I just learned about the new Federal Trade Commission regulations for blogs from Craig's post via Chris' post. To be honest, I don't believe it is the government's job to tell bloggers how they should write their posts. Yeah, bloggers should mention in their posts that they were asked to review a product for a company, but does the government really have to tell or require bloggers to do so?

I don't think so, and that's why I'm posting on this topic. I'm bothered by these new regulations because I feel like the government is treating bloggers as if they are children. As an adult, I resent being treated like a child by the government, and I think the regulations should have been givens for other bloggers way before the FTC created these regulations. Additionally, I wonder if these new regulations will create precedents for the FTC to publish new and possibly, more restrictive regulations in the future.

Why do I worry? Well, from time to time, I write brief book reviews of history and genealogy books that I have read, and I think I've mentioned whether or not I bought the book or had a connection to the author. Is the government going to tell me that I can't write book reviews or that I must put another disclaimer at the end of my book review? I think I make it clear that I've either bought these books or checked them out of the library. I'm not telling people to go out and buy the books. My whole purpose in posting the book reviews was to suggest books that might help other genealogists with their research. People don't have to buy the books; they can check them out from a library.

I was thinking of posting another three book reviews of books I read over the summer, but now I'm wondering if I should bother. Would it be better for me to stop posting my informal book reviews to protect myself? Or should I just continue to post book reviews? What do you think?

As always, you can leave comments on what you think.

Friday, June 20, 2008

What on Earth? This Is A Stupid Lawsuit ...

I just happened to read Randy and the Ancestry Insider's posts on the lawsuit filed by TGN (the company that owns Ancestry.com) against the maker of the Legacy Family Tree. Ancestry claims that Legacy has infringed upon the copyright of Ancestry's Family Tree Maker. I realize that copyright infringements are very serious, but from looking at the different boxes for the software, it appears to my layman's judgement that the lawsuit is petty. (I'm not a lawyer, so I'm not an expert. This is just my opinion.)

To me, the legacy box does not share very much in common with Ancestry's Family Tree Maker boxes. The Family Tree Maker boxes have a branch with leaves of a certain color, and each color is different for three editions of the Family Tree Maker. The Legacy box, however, only has a orange maple leaf on the box. (That is, if you look at Ancestry Insider's picture of the box.) If you look at the picture in Randy's post, however, the box does not look a bit like the boxes for Ancestry's software. Of course, that is just one of the aspects mentioned on the Ancestry Insider's post that I thought I would mention.

From a public relations standpoint, I think this lawsuit was a mistake for Ancestry. This lawsuit only makes Ancestry appear more of a money-grubbing company. I think this lawsuit will only drop Ancestry's approval rates drop even more among its dissatisfied customers. Of course, that is just my opinion.

So, what do you think? As always, you can leave a comment.

Thursday, June 19, 2008

An Interesting Article on Hawaii ...

I just happened to notice this article on Hawaii, and I thought I would post a link to it.

So, what so you think? As always, you can leave a comment with your thoughts.

Monday, June 16, 2008

This Makes Me Sick!

Here's an article on an issue that genealogists need to be concerned with: vandalism of cemeteries. It makes me sick and angry to think that there are people out there who would vandalise cemeteries. Why can't people leave the dead people to rest in peace in their graves?

Friday, February 22, 2008

Some Interesting Articles ...

I've wanted to mention some articles that I found interesting over the past week or so, but I never got around to mentioning them. So here are some articles that I have found interesting:

I realize that I have listed a large number of articles, but I thought these articles were interesting. Enjoy!

Update at 2:30 p.m.: I added the links to the articles for Anglo-Celtic and AnceStories, and more post labels.

Saturday, October 27, 2007

Another Legal Column Posted!

Another legal column has been posted on Craig Manson's blog. You can read it here. This time, the column has the answer to the quiz column that was posted a few days ago.

Tuesday, October 23, 2007

Another legal column posted

Another legal column has been posted on Craig Manson's blog. You can read it here.

Friday, October 19, 2007

Two More Legal Posts Posted

Craig Manson has posted two more legal lesson posts on his blog. You can read the one posted yesterday here and the one posted today here.

Wednesday, October 17, 2007

Another Law Column Posted

Craig Manson posted another law column last night. You can read it here.