Tech Forum

I was looking for some teaching resources on google and came across this site:
[link removed]

They have posted church content (aka copyrighted material.) Per the letters from the presiding bishopric only "official" church websites can house church content.

I imagine that member owned sites get a strong letter from the church. Non-member owned sites would most likely be notified about copyright infringement by the church's legal department.

Does any one know who or how these policies are enforced?

I appreciate opinion and conjecture....but ask that only those with specific knowledge of this reply to this posting to avoid diluting the subject.

Thank you!

This happens from time to time. I removed the link so we don't end up directing any traffic there. Here's some info if you would like to follow up with it. I'm sure the Church would appreciate a heads up.



For assistance or information regarding Church copyrighted materials, you may contact the Church's Intellectual Property Office at:
Phone: 801-240-3959 or 1-800-453-3860, ext. 2-3959
Fax: 801-240-1187
E-Mail: cor-intellectualproperty@ldschurch.org.

Microwaved,

You way want to post the link in the Moderator section of this forum so that it can get to those at the Church who might do something about it (if action is to be taken).

The Church does constantly look for copyright violations and appreciates the members alerting us to possible infringements. I've passed information over to the proper department in the Church.

Thanks,

Tom

Okay, so I am just trying to prepare for an upcoming lesson when I found this too.

This site offers an administrative tool for free called LDS Auxiliary Assistant software.
The URL is http://www.ldsauxiliaryassistant.com(Link is no longer active.)

Here's the snafu. Their site states this on the home page:
"(New!) Import membership, home teaching, and visiting teaching data from the MLS software in the clerk's office. "

To my knowledge the church prohibits exporting MLS "membership" data for use in 3rd party solutions. I imagine this is because there are no assurances the information will remain secured.

So is this allowed? If so, under what conditions? If not, can you please report this site too?

Please limit replies to "official" and/or "factual" replies. Just want to avoid diluting the subject matter here.

Thanks!

enriquer wrote:Okay, so I am just trying to prepare for an upcoming lesson when I found this too.

This site offers an administrative tool for free called LDS Auxiliary Assistant software.
The URL is www.ldsauxiliaryassistant.com

Here's the snafu. Their site states this on the home page:
"(New!) Import membership, home teaching, and visiting teaching data from the MLS software in the clerk's office. "

To my knowledge the church prohibits exporting MLS "membership" data for use in 3rd party solutions. I imagine this is because there are no assurances the information will remain secured.

So is this allowed? If so, under what conditions? If not, can you please report this site too?

Please limit replies to "official" and/or "factual" replies. Just want to avoid diluting the subject matter here.

Thanks!

No, there is no blanket prohibition on exporting MLS membership data for use in 3rd party solutions. See, for example, the section titled Personal Digital Assistant in the Record Keeping FAQ at http://www.lds.org/bfs/RecordKeepingFAQ.pdf.

What you will notice is that there is a requirement to keep the data confidential:

Caution:These reports areconfidential. Please ensure that no unauthorized person

receives or views this data. Make sure the data is deleted from the PDA as soon as it is
out of date or not used any longer. PDAs with this information should be password

protected.

Because of this concern about confidentiality, it would not be permitted to upload membership data to 3rd party servers. But if the 3rd party application is running on a computer where the data can be secured, and it is properly deleted when the user no longer has the calling, I don't see why a 3rd Party application would be any different from the PDA answer given in the official document I cited above.

My impression from the conversation previously was that it was 3rd-party servers, not necessarily 3rd-party solutions...

Look here: http://tech.lds.org/forum/showthread.ph ... 6#post5036

enriquer wrote:Please limit replies to "official" and/or "factual" replies. Just want to avoid diluting the subject matter here.

By the way (and this is for everyone's benefit), some moderators are actually Church employees, but some are only volunteer forum members. You can spot most of the Church employees with a special little LDS Church badge icon by their name; however, there are a few individuals that are Church employees that don't have a badge (or maybe don't have one yet).

For instance, DJC works at the Church but doesn't sport the badge because he doesn't want everything he says taken as official. He will signify in his post if he is speaking "officially".

But I appreciate your comment, enriquer; we volunteer moderators do need to be careful not to cross that line. Thank you for the reminder.

Hope this info helps everyone.

enriquer wrote:I was looking for some teaching resources on google and came across this site:

Maybe I imagined it, but I thought that we had been counseled to not incorporate additional resources for preparing lessons outside of the approved lesson manuals and supplemental materials available at lds.org.

Alan_Brown, MkMurray,

After reading the responses it seems that what "official" guideliness there are defined for limited situations (PDAs ,etc.)

So I am stepping away from this with the following understanding:
1. Membership data is defined as data exported from MLS containing DOBs, record #'s, and other private info.
2. Membership data cannot be loaded on non-church owned servers.
3. MLS exports, such as the PalmFamily file, are presently permitted on PDA's.
4. It is believed but not known if MLS membership record exports are permitted on home computers. If so they should be secured from the internet.

Did I interpret this correctly?


Jbh001, good point. However, this was not for a sunday lesson. I was just looking up resources for teaching new clerks when this came up.