Joan, I guess I didn't explain that very well. The author, in some cases verbatim, copied pieces of personal web pages, sometimes very large ones, and wrote them into his book. In my opinion, the amounts he copied in many cases were well past fair use. He didn't even give credit to the author (which is of course another matter). Basically what he did was search the web, find pages about families many of whom he couldn't possibly been familiar, and just copied these into a books and published them. Copying over half a web page into a book and publishing it, I believe violates the author's copyright. Of course these are mainly "hobby" pages, and the authors wouldn't lose much money due to these books, but it just can't be legal despite the fact it wouldn't be worth a lawsuit. I was very disappointed at my waste of time the first time I picked one off of the shelf and looked for information on some of my problem families ... And angered. If these books made it to my local library, they must have made it to many other places -- So he made money, likely by simply copying and pasting other people's hard work and original writings. Pointing out the inaccuracies was a feeble attempt to explain that he was blindly copying and not doing any more homework than someone who downloads a term paper from the Internet. Debbie That's a very vague statement. Whether there has been copyright infringement would greatly depend upon what data is included in these books--so the question you raise is unanswerable as you have presented it. One point...it isn't illegal to publish inaccurate information. Joan ************************************** Get a sneak peek of the all-new AOL at http://discover.aol.com/memed/aolcom30tour

Seems to me, All these messages are discussing plagiarism, not copyright, except as an incidental issue issue. While copyright issues are legal issues, plagiarism is an ethical issue. Those are usually grounds for a failing grade in school, or censure by the appropriate authority, or in some cases,dismissal. Unethical behavior, resulting in personal loss, NOT hurt feelings, may be adjudicated. Stan B. --- RoverLSmith@aol.com wrote: > > Joan, > ... > Basically what he did was search the web, find pages about families many of > whom he couldn't possibly been familiar, and just copied these into a books > and published them. Copying over half a web page into a book and > publishing it, believe violates the author's copyright. > I am NOT old, I am experienced! ____________________________________________________________________________________ Be a better Heartthrob. Get better relationship answers from someone who knows. Yahoo! Answers - Check it out. http://answers.yahoo.com/dir/?link=list&sid=396545433