On 16 Jan 00, at 10:01, Andrea Vogel <[email protected]> wrote: > Hi -- this is my first post to the list as I just joined. Great to have this > resource as copyright topics always seem to be popping up. > Question -- how much of a published book is it permissable to quote on a > mail list? For example, is it permitted to post an entire (3 and a half > page) index from the book? This book was published 1985 by Collins in > England. It concerns genealogical research. I notice that is does not have > the copyright statement at the front, you know the one -- starts like this > "All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, etc. > etc..." > Any info gratefully received. Andrea (western Canada) > A little tardy in response. For an object to be subject to copyright it has to have artistic, literary, dramatic or musical work. Is the index covered by this? >From my understanding an index can transcribed due to there being no literary, artistic, etc. merit to its content, it being a collection of facts, eg. a reference on page 42 is just that, a reference to fact, not something of artistic merit, not subject to judgment or interpretation. There is of course artistic merit to the the actual production itself (set out of letters on paper). So you cannot scan it; produce it as a text page but that cannot go to a list anyway, but from my understanding of the law (from Australian copyright texts) you can transcribe all of an index. When it comes to a compiled database (electronic information) it gets away from copyright (the merit question not applying), and it gets covered by intellectual property <http://www.wipo.org>, so the protection is done by a different manner. Regards Andrew My personal thoughts on the matter only. Do not use this thoughts as a means for an action but as a starting point for your own investigations. -- Andrew Billinghurst * Have you got your free webpages at http://freepages.rootsweb.com ? * Find out how at http://www.rootsweb.com/rootsweb/press/freepages.html