For your info: Copyright laws are a confusing web all by themselves. No one's work may be published in any form in it's entirety without permission, regardless where it is published. Gary B. Hoffman, legal expert for Broderbund Fair Use. "Fair use" allows non-infringing copying of a copyrighted work for such purposes as comment, criticism, news reporting, teaching, scholarship or research. In determining whether such use is fair, courts consider 1.whether the purpose is commercial or non-commercial, 2.the nature of the work, 3.the amount used in relation to the whole work, 4.the effect of the use on the market or value of the work. In general, copying a small amount of a work is considered fair unless it is the heart of the work. You, Genealogy, and Copyright The copyright laws affect both the research and the publication of your genealogy, either a narrative family history or a simple pedigree family line. First, though, consider that the basic facts about your ancestor's life (such as name, birth date and place, marriage partner, date and place, and death date and place) do not receive copyright protection, no matter their source. Whether you went to the county courthouse, rented a microfilm of the relevant records, or found the data in a commercial CD-ROM, the basic facts of a person's life may be freely copied; they are in the public domain. But adding any kind of narration to these basic facts gives rise to a copyright in the creative portion of the work. The more narrative, the stronger the copyright. If you are the author, you should take care to mark your work to give the proper notice. If it is a large or major work, consider registering it and depositing a copy in the Library of Congress. On the other hand, if you find narrative material in a good family source, you should take care not to violate the rights of the author. Remember the idea of "Fair Use," mentioned above, before using more than a sentence or two, seek out the author and get permission. Do not assume that just because you have a copy of a story, you can copy it again or incorporate it into your family's history. If the author is dead, genealogists -- of all researchers -- are unable to use the excuse that they couldn't locate the heirs to seek copyright clearance! Simple pedigree charts are not copyrightable, despite their markings, even when filled in with facts. But add a "modicum of creativity" and you can claim copyright protection in a pedigree chart. The same goes for computerized pedigree data, either in disk form or in a GEDCOM file.