> Genealogical discussion lists often include messages from members who > own published works offering to do look-ups for other members who don't > own a particular book. Do any of you know of any legal risk in such? >... My instincts tells me there > could be problem. I don't think so. First of all, that's Fair Use (research). Secondly, its very similar to what public libraries do for anyone. Copyright does not exist primarily to protect the marketability of a particular work. Doing look-ups does not infringe upon copyright because it involves tiny portions of a copyrighted work, is for research, and most probably only includes facts which are in the public domain or otherwise unprotected anyway. (cf. all the discussion before Thanksgiving about publishing census and cemetery compilations. Since a look-up involves relaying to another person some particular fact, usually public information anyway, it does not interfere with the author's originality or creativity, so it doesn't infringe.) -- Tom Thatcher [email protected] <http://members.rpa.net/~thatcher/> <http://wc.rootsweb.com/cgi-bin/igm.cgi?db=thatcher-th>