Good for you Lisa, Way to spell it out clearly. Let's start sharing information again. If someone has some genuine original materials fine, then copyright and protect it. The "phone listing" court decision of recent should have put people on notice that mere regurgitation of public domain information was not such material. Dwayne ______________________________ Reply Separator _________________________________ Subject: WEB Discussion Author: listowners@rootsweb.com at internet-ext Date: 7/21/97 4:04 AM ITS MINE! ITS MINE! ITS MINE! I retired from teaching about 8 years ago, with these words ringing in my ears. I swore I would be dealing mostly with adults...HA! HA! I sent out one of the messages regarding this "COPYRIGHT MESS" to my lists to let them know what was going on, IT WAS NOT MY OPINION! The purpose of GENEALOGY is to share, NOT SELL! Yet, sadly we are coming, more and more to that point, by claiming possession, of lists, data, and PUBLIC DOMAIN. The copyright laws...since everyone is pressing this matter, are for the purpose of preventing material from being published or SOLD, by anyone else, other than the author or musican. Are you sharing or selling?? Now, I am being to see some really odd phrases; I indexed the *** Cemetery List, and *** copied it to ***'s page. So WHAT???? They wasn't Selling the information? When I log-on, I am pull the curtain of my "picture widow" open to the world. Anything I share in my window, belongs to the computer-world! Or does the little box on most archives "this information is freely shared and may be copied, but not sold" a LIE????? Who cares who gets the credit? Unless someone is on an ego-trip? Everytime I browse the web, I search Web sites and Surname data bases for information, should I go back to ALL these people an "Give them back, the names, dates, and spelling" that I stole??? Sorry folks but I feel the Internet is not for hire, and if we continue on this path, we'll end up Paying BIG Business for the information, that should be freely shared. If I index a Cemetery, Census, or Wills, and SCREAM copywrite violation, everytime someone uses my list (without permission), I haven't done the work for helping other, I've done it so eveyone can see my name copywrited at the bottom! This is My Opinion. Maybe I'm wrong, but with this attitude, we'll all end up paying big bucks, to WTM, FO, and Borderbond, don't get me wrong, they serve a purpose, but don't complete the entire picture. I don't want the net to be regulated!! Its coming...and we just entered the fast-lane. Caution; the mailing lists that I maintain are public domain and belong to each and every subscriber. The information is freely shared. If you don't wish your information to go to others, your in the wrong place. Lisa Henderson-Listowner of Bass, Cauble, Dutch-Colonies, Emerson, Griggs, Henderson, Kelsey, and Powell-Mailing Lists Web Page-Copy Freely-I give permission!-(sorry, don't have much up, yet.) http://www.geocities.com/Heartland/Meadows/8287/index.html