"The originality requirement is not very stringent. In fact, the selection or arrangement methods that others have used may unknowingly be used; novelty is not required.� For the originality requirment, the author needs only to make the *arrangement or selection independantly, without copying the selection or arrangement from another work*, and it must display some minimal level of creativity. While most factual compilations will pass this test..." Mike, thanks very much for the time you took to post your info. I also appreciate your WWW site - you've done a lot of work on a very complex area. The first paragraph says it all. Most factual compilations will pass the copyright test! And if it's in a printed book carrying a copyright notice, it would be playing with fire to publish it on a WWW site. And it is wrong - both unethical and illegal - to copy and publish a data base compiled by someone else. I agree completely that the "facts themselves" are not copyrighted. This does not mean we have carte blanche to copy the facts someone else has compiled and collected; it means we can go to the original records and use the same facts to build our own database. I completely disagree with any interpretation that says that it is now legal to copy a pre-existing database. I don't believe that's what the law says. Kathleen.