Basically, we’re asking NYS DOH “what happened here?”

So here’s the thing: under New York’s law, either the state can quote you the actual costs of making the copies and you then pay it (paper photocopies are capped at $0.25/page, other media must be actual costs of duplication) OR the requestor can physically make the copies themselves, onsite, during business hours. Using methods of duplication like a cellphone camera (flash turned off and battery-powered) has been held by the state Committee on Open Government (COOG) in their Advisory Opinions on the law, to be totally free.

So initially we asked the state for a cost estimate for these microfiche and they pulled one out of their ass, $152,000 for what should have been a few thousand dollars at most (see lawsuit text for the estimate calculations). OR we could just make the microfiche scans ourselves onsite, and that should have been free.

So we were willing to do option B, make the copies. But the state made us jump through all kinds of hoops to prove that the magical microfiche machine was high quality, that we would do it hand-fed instead of sheet-fed, that we work around their employees’ schedule, and so on. We said yes to all of that.

And then blammo, 800 lb gorilla company gets the records first, literally using our own words to do it.

So either Ancestry paid the fee, or Ancestry took Option B, as we were going to do, and did the work themselves. As per their PR Department in this BuzzFeed article, they did the work themselves.

But then they’re a for-profit company, acting as a de-facto vendor for the state. So shouldn’t there be a contract for the work?