At 08:44 AM 11/4/99 EST, you wrote: >I have started a new site for newspaper abstracts and had decided to limit >the items I upload to newspapers in the US dated before 1923. By doing so I >am able to avoid any copyright issues. I now have had numerous requests to >add other countries. How do I go about determining what the copyright laws >are for Canada, Europe, Australia, etc without hiring a copyright lawyer? The provisions of the United States copyright code extends to works first published in other countries. This was established by treaty developed at the Universal Copyright Convention. The text of that treaty may be found in the background explanation for 17 USC Sec. 104, Subject matter of copyright: National origin. You can get to that information by on my "Linked Index to the U.S. Copyright Code" on my copyright site. The index is at: http://www.rootsweb.com/~mikegoad/html/code.htm Then click on the link for Sec. 104... I'm not sure about how it applies to length of copyright applicability, though, for works published in other countries. I've not pursued that avenue of study. Hopefully, this will help get you started. Mike