Per the article they are not selling anything:

> Access to web records is free. No one needs to subscribe or register with Ancestry to view these records.

> Web records are attributed to the content publishers.

> They're easily available. Prominent links make it easy to access the source website.

> We follow web standards for restricting crawling (robots.txt files). If a website has a robots.txt file that prohibits crawling the genealogical records, we don't search those records. If records from your website are included and you'd like them removed, please send a request to websearch@an cestry .com.

As the article says, Ancestry wasn’t selling this data and was linking back to where it had come from. Ancestry also says they will honor robots.txt with instructions not to scrape data.

The OP wrote “make and use copies of data” — seems a reasonable response

You are right. I was just reacting to the idea that anything you find on webpage is yours to use without restriction. Think about pictures of my kids on social media!

Thank you for clarifying.

Actually, it does. Facts can’t be copyrighted. If I find facts on the public internet, it’s legal to sell and use in most jurisdictions around the world.

If I don’t want the world to see material, I don’t give it away for free to everyone.

While an individual fact can't be copyrighted, a collection of facts does have database right protections in the EU & UK: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Database_right

Yes that's true, but copyright is not the only restriction about the use of data you find online. There's trademark and privacy to consider. I don't think either thing is likely to apply to dead people :)

Trademark also doesn’t apply to facts. And if data is published on the open internet then privacy is most likely not an issue. The genealogy is already published in the open.

So I don’t think those elements are relevant to the conversation without more context.

I think this is the key point that lots of people need to understand.

Your photo of a headstone? You own the copyright.

Grandfather died on 9 June 1938 & is buried at X? Not copyrightable.