On Tuesday, November 28, 2000, Michael Allison <[email protected]> wrote: > 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? > Does an author with a copyright on that work have a valid legal > objection? It's certainly obvious that the author is going to lose sales > of the book from that form of sharing.? My instincts tells me there > could be problem. On Tuesday, November 28, 2000, Thatcher family <[email protected]> wrote: > I don't think so. First of all, that's Fair Use (research). Secondly, its > very similar to what public libraries do for anyone. This can be different from a library for two potential reasons. If the look-up is for a single person and is only a small quantity of material, that would be like research fair-use in a library. But no library would broadcast the book to large numbers of people on a mailing list, and they would also look askance at someone who wanted to copy most or all of a book. On these factors, an author would have to judge where the dividing line is that significantly impacts a books' saleability and makes it worth pursuing a lawsuit (as Margaret pointed out a certain amount might help a book's sales). They would then have to convince a court of law of the same. Of course, if the retrieved information is presented in a different format, there is no copyright violation. Just on general principle I always rewrite when I have looked up information (though I still attribute the source). Scott Anderson [email protected] http://www.physics.emory.edu/faculty/anderson