Listers -- this is in response to the 21 Nov post from John <JRBOUFFLER@aol.com> in which he said he thought that he would be infringing copyright if he extracted names and details from the Vital Records Index (British Isles). John had offered to do look-ups for fellow listers in this source. I could be wrong here -- I don't find copyright law easy to understand! -- but I don't see how extracting a few surnames out of this source (or any source, for that matter) is an infringement of copyright. After all, isn't this what we do all the time as researchers and genealogists? We extract certain selected names and details out of records, usually for our own personal use but sometimes for others, and we most likely share that information with anyone else who is interested. Without wanting to get into a protracted discussion about copyright on this list, I don't see how names, dates and locations are copyrightable. It would be infringing on copyright if you took large chunks, verbatim, out of a source that was compiled or written by someone else. I can see that. But I don't see how extracting some names out of an index is a copyright problem. What about the IGI -- isn't extracting info out of it the very reason it exists? As I said, I don't fully understand copyright law -- although I have tried! Maybe I'm mixing apples and oranges here. Just my humble opinion. As I mentioned,this list is is not the appropriate place for a copyright discussion but if anyone has copyright info to send me privately, I will put it all together into one message and post it to the list. I also think it would be a good idea to have a section on this topic on the web site. Andrea