"Very probably. However, if another individual uses facts or public domain information from that book to write a paper on "MA Deaths of Family Dougherty (and all Variations) with Named Parent's," it is a different selection of the original facts." Mike, I agree with this - as long as the source is properly cited. Confining the material used to one name or one family is not a sufficient "taking" to damage the book's sale value and it could be argued that the "Dougherty article" gave the book publicity and enhanced its sale value. This is a far far different thing from publishing an entire database or book to a WWW site, which was the original topic of discussion. "However, a compilation of ALL of the names of people with their headstone inscriptions buried in the "Cedar Bluffs Cemetery" probably would not be sufficiently original, especially of the entries are ordered in alphabetical or chronilogical order." Before anyone decides to publish such a database to a WWW site in its entirety, they'd be well advised to check the copy- right and get permission from the compiler. We're all amateurs and this is a complex legal issue. A rule of thumb I recall from my school days is if a fact or bit of information is commonly available (5 or more places) it can be considered "public domain", and that may have played a part in the Feist decision. Depending on who owns Cedar Bluff Cemetery, and hence the cemetery records, those facts may not be public domain. The sort of info that goes into a phone directory is currently and commonly available in a number of different places. I see a world of difference between a phone directory and most genealogical compilations. To quote Dr. B: "The issue is doing The Right Thing. The right thing generally involves working with authors, gensocs, and publishers and trying to avoid damaging the economic value of what they do." Hope we haven't bored the list to death - have a good Sunday, all! Kathleen.