GER-VOLGA-L Archives

Archiver > GER-VOLGA > 2002-09 > 1031971706


From: Ted Gerk <>
Subject: [GV] More Latest News About the Morse Ellis Island Site
Date: Fri, 13 Sep 2002 19:48:32 -0700
In-Reply-To: <HFEDJDBMLKBMMOJFEDJFOECDFJAA.tgerk@shaw.ca>


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Vol. 3, No. 17 - September 4, 2002
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Nu? What's New?
News About Jewish Genealogy
from Avotaynu

Gary Mokotoff, Editor
************************************************************
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The Latest Status of the Stephen Morse Site
==============================
Here is the latest status of the Stephen Morse portal to the Ellis Island
data base.

The Statue of Liberty Ellis Island Foundation wants Steve to sign an
agreement that defines the relationship between him and SLEIF. Steve's
attitude is that he provided the site as a public service for no personal
gain and, if it requires a contract to have his site on the Internet, it
isn't worth the hassle. So he wants out. That's the bad news.

The good news is that I have excellent rapport with the Ellis Island people
and have been discussing with them placing the Morse functionality on the
Avotaynu site. Steve has given me permission to use his handiwork.

I am a business man. I don't mind hassles. I don't mind contracts, I don't
mind lawyers (in fact one of my best daughters is a lawyer).

As of this moment, the main function page is available for use by the public
at my company's site, http://www.avotaynu.com/ellis.html. I am looking into
the possibility of including the Missing Manifests function also.

As to the so-called Jewish site, it is more likely that SLEIF, rather than
Avotaynu, will implement its functionality. Personally, I do not want to get
involved with this component; from its very beginning I questioned its
propriety. In order for it to work, someone had to download from the EI
database the Hebrew portion of the file of 23 million immigrants--clearly
done without the permission of SLEIF--and place it on a computer where the
data could be massaged. I do not know whether that is legal or not, but as a
person in the publishing business who takes very seriously the question of
copyright and other matters of ownership, it is not something in which I
want to get involved.

The Jewish site has served a very valuable purpose. It has awakened the
Ellis Island people to the fact that there is a lot more functionality that
can be put into their system. The fact that they are willing to make the
so-called Jewish site available as part of their system means that any
immigrant--not just Jewish--will be capable of being searched by town and
other enhancements of the Morse Jewish site.


Ellis Island Foundation Explains Its Position
=============================
In response to inquiries they have received, The Statue of Liberty-Ellis
Island Foundation has responded with the following statement:

"Thank you for sharing your comments and concerns. Let us take this
opportunity to clarify the situation for you.

"Stephen Morse improperly obtained information from The Statue of
Liberty-Ellis Island Foundation's Website at http://www.ellisisland.org and
used it to create a subset of that data for others to use. This was done in
violation of the Foundation's legal and proprietary rights, and in violation
of the conditions of the Foundation Website's Terms of Service. This is much
more serious than a deep linking issue.

"When the Foundation became aware that its data had been downloaded from the
Foundation's site and offered on Mr. Morse's site, but in recognition of the
usefulness of the information and tools his site provides, it chose to work
with Mr. Morse to make his information and search capabilities available on
the Foundation's Website. Operating in good faith, the Foundation has been
in close conversation and negotiation with Mr. Morse over the last month,
and the negotiations are ongoing.

"The Foundation neither asked nor demanded that Mr. Morse close down his
site. Rather it agreed that Mr. Morse could keep those portions of the site
relating to the Ellis Island database up until which time as they can be
hosted on the Foundation site, where they rightly and legally belong.

"The Statue of Liberty Ellis Island Foundation is a non profit organization
which went to the public to ask them for money to build its site. Thousands
of volunteers worked to create the database. The site offers free viewing to
all. It charges a fee to obtain copies of the records and ship pictures. The
money raised by these charges goes to pay for staffing the site and its
maintenance. If the Foundation were to allow people to improperly take data
from its site it would not be able to afford to keep the site up.

"It is the Foundation's hope that a fair and reasonable agreement can be
reached with Mr. Morse so that this valuable information can continue to be
made available to the public. The Foundation cannot, however, let anyone
lift data wholesale from its site for their own purposes, even if they are
motivated to do so to assist others in genealogical research.

The Statue of Liberty-Ellis Island Foundation, Inc."



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