Widow's Rights

LegacyUser

Mary Lee Edwards said: There are personal photos being posted pertaining to my deceased husbands personal page. As a living widow I would like more control over pictures of him being shown without my permission? Family information can be shared always, but not personal family photos of him. How can I get some privacy on his church account?

LegacyUser

Jordi Kloosterboer said: You could try asking the person who uploaded them to kindly take them down. I'm sure they don't want to offend you since you are his wife.

LegacyUser

David Newton said: He's dead. Privacy rights don't apply to him any more. However what can legitimately be used to restrict reproduction of photographs of him is copyright.

Do you own the copyright of the photographs in question? If so then you can legitimately restrict them. If not and you know the person who owns the copyright then they can restrict them. If neither is true then tough luck. You then have no right to to stop things.

LegacyUser

Mary Lee Edwards said: Neither one of us ever considered "copyrights" as an issue in our ordinary family. I don't think an average American family with a long marriage, raising children, having extended family, and all that a life time of living brings with it, ever thought of "copyrights" as an issue. The person who posted these 2 photos is not going to omit them. So, live and learn. signed: disgruntied Widow

LegacyUser

David Newton said: Does the person who posted the photos own the copyright or have permission from the person who owns the copyright to post the photos? If not then they've violated the Familysearch content submission agreement.

You may not have considered copyright, but it's vital to online content. FYI if your husband had a will then intellectual property rights will pass according to that will. if not expressly covered then they will come under the provisions of an any other items of property clause in the will. If there is no will then they will pass according to in testate rules for whatever your local jurisdiction is.

LegacyUser

A van Helsdingen said: This is a very sensitive issue, and one where the rule "dead people have no privacy rights" can cause problems for the living.

There is no need to turn this into a legal dispute, just ask this member to be sensitive of the fact that close family of your husband is still living.

Only if this person refuses, and if the content has been copied/stolen, e.g. personal family photos, then prehaps you could ask FS Support for advice.

But if the photos and content being uploaded are public, e.g. newspapers, there is no law against this. The FamilySearch Terms of Use would be only rules governing this behaviour.

LegacyUser

David Newton said: Hello Mr Censorship. So my first post violated the code of conduct did it?

Really. REALLY? Telling someone how they can deal with the situation then that otherwise I'm afraid it's tough luck violates the code of conduct? That is NOT unconstructive. That is NOT unkind.

Now of course I could say something about how certain political representatives voted on Wednesday evening and how that really was unkind and uncooperative. That would be particularly appropriate given who elected said political representative (Utah). I could point out that the rules forbidding "speculation" are still not being properly enforced here since lots of posts and threads have not been deleted, despite engaging in rampant "speculation".

LegacyUser

A van Helsdingen said: Politics has no place on this forum. Anyone who has been following things can understand what and who you are talking about. Discuss this somewhere else, or even better go to the polls whenever your area has primary and general elections.

LegacyUser

David Newton said: Politics wan't in my first answer. My first answer was helpful. My first answer was constructive. In no legitimate way could it be described as unkind. What happens? I'm accussed of not being constructive and not kind and my post is deleted.

As you likely know there's a passage in the Bible about removing the log from your own eye before discussing any splinters in other people's eyes. The legislator in question is nice, big log. He is right in the eye of the people who elected him. Then a representative of the organisation based in said representative's state, an organisation that said legislator is a practising member of so far as I am aware, has the temerity to accuse me of being unkind and unconstructive for that post.

This same organisation still allows a huge amount of "speculation" to occur on these forums in direct contravention of the code of conduct. It therefore both refuses to enforce the terms of the code of conduct of this forum consistently and refuses to amend them to actually permit reasonable discourse. The hypocrisy is breathtaking.

LegacyUser

Paul said: David

Excuse the analogy, but your posts often remind me of a visit to Canada, when I was very much younger. On the first morning of my visit I turned on the radio and was really shocked at the attitude of the host, who said some quite outrageous things in response to listeners' problems. I had not been used to anything like this in England at the time and wondered how he could "get away with it". However, I soon warmed to this guy and realised that was just his style and many of his quips were really quite constructive.

Those users unfamiliar with the nature of your responses must find you very brusque and possibly offensive. After initially taking offence myself, I now look forward to reading your comments, which are, yes, often very "direct" but also frequently "spot on", especially when it comes to a positive response to a problem.

So, I for one would not ask you to radically change your approach, but just to expect to continue having some of your more "head-on" responses to be removed by the moderators!

LegacyUser

Amy Archibald said: Mary, I'd like to understand more.

I have created some people in the Tree who are living - my mother, aunts, uncles, my husband's aunts and uncles. I've attached photos and other documents to them. When they pass away and I make their record public, then these photos, and documents I've shared over the past 8 years will become easily available to everyone who chooses to view the person's page.

I'm not concerned about this. When my father died and my sister marked her version of him as deceased, we were thrilled to see the treasure trove of photos, documents, stories, etc that she had collected. Even a distant cousin had photos we hadn't seen. It was thrilling!

I'd like to better understand the concern you have about the photos the other user has shared. Are the photos not appropriate? Did they take photos from someone without permission?

Do you know that you can "Untag" the photos of your husband so that they don't show up in his Memories?

I would like to hear back from you so that I can better understand your feelings as I don't want to hurt any of my family members with the Memories I'm collecting and I'm sure my sister doesn't want to either. Thank you for any insight you can give me.

LegacyUser

Tom Huber said: I agree. She was not clear as to why the photos should not have been posted. I really do not understand why she would be offended or demand permission, unless she was the person who took the photos. Any copyright belongs with the photographer.

There are issues involved with permission, but where a deceased person is involved, their permission cannot be obtained and therefore, there is no permission issue invovled.

Now if Mary is in the photo, then yes, she can demand to grant permission. In that regard, if she still feels strongly about having her image exposed with her husband, then she should probably contact
1) the user who posted the photo
2) FamilySearch, requesting that the photo be removed.

Beyond that, I don't know why she feels the way she does.