The website, Afterlife.co, which describes itself as the “biggest Canada obituary listing” is publishing obituaries without people’s permission, and this has made at least one mother very angry.
The website sells floral arrangements and virtual memorial candles on each obituary page.
Sharing something that is already online doesn’t bother me. What ticks me off is that this website is trying to make money from these online obits.
In contrast, Genealogy Quebec makes more than two million online obituaries from across Canada available for free. They don’t charge for access.
A Pembroke, Ontario woman wants Afterlife, which collects obituaries from across the internet, to be shut down after it published her four-year-old son’s obituary from 2016 without her permission.
Afterlife claims to be the “largest database of deceased people in Canada” and that it arranges with local vendors to provide floral arrangements.
The website also encourages people to “add or edit information on the deceased.”
Of course, genealogists like access to all obituaries, but is making money from these online memorials ethical? I don’t think so.
You can read more about this in the CBC News report from Ottawa.
Once the obit is online, it is part of the public domain. They are profiting from it, so maybe they are better business people than we are. If someone hangs out a shingle to do research, is that wrong, esp when a person can do their own research, theoretically and actually? But maybe folks don’t want to or don’t know how to research…so pay others to do it for them…using possibly obits they need to pay for. Sorry her feelings were hurt. And don’t be so judgmental.
That is entirely untrue. The author of the obituary owns the copyright. Anyone who wants to publish a copy of copyrighted material, whether in print or online, must have permission of the copyright holder. Just because something is on the internet does not make it “public domain”. That’s one of the biggest lies of the internet.
And just for the record, I’ve often wondered how Genealogy Quebec handles the obits it offers. (That’s the Drouin Institut, I believe.) But I was very happy to find one there the other day specially since the Rootsweb index for it is unavailable!
I have no idea how Genealogy Quebec (Drouin Institute’s website) is able to provide the online obits, but I’m glad they do. Access to the obits is free and spans 1999 to present.
Not a lot different from findagrave. And now that it’s been “improved” it’s harder to find the memorial among the adds.
A published obituary is public property
Most newspapers in the USA claim obituaries are under their copywrite, even if written by family members…