Hi Folks, I'm one of the "background" subscribers who thinks portions of my ancestors may be mentioned on the mailing list but otherwise have little to contribute. I'm also a great believer in the mailing list concept since many of us may be researching common ancestors and have much to share - or else come across sites beneficial to others. (I've been at this for over 33 years.) The "beneficial" portion is the reason for my coming to the surface so to speak. Copyright laws are very simple - the life of the author plus 70 years. I'm aware of this simply because, as a member of another mailing list, I had a copy of a book tracing families in a Kentucky county to the late 1700's. I knew the author personally, she signed our book, and she died in the late 1980's. The company that printed the book went out of existence in the early 1990's. Innocently, I started to transcribe portions of the book to the mailing list for the county under the assumption that it would never be re-published and the information therefore lost. What I failed to realize was that the heirs of the author had copyright privileges to the book for seventy years after her death. When I was informed of this I immediately stopped the transcriptions. Its important to realize that simply because something is posted to the Internet does not make it legal to re-distribute. Its also important to realize that everything you come across cannot be legally posted to the Internet. Finally - to quote Rodney King (was that his name from the L.A. riots?) - "Can't we all just learn to get along?" ;-) John Cresseveur - KY (31 years in NJ, past 19 here in KY) ----- Original Message ----- Subject: [NJGLOUCE] Complaint on my Submission Subj: Re: [NJGLOUCE] Genealogy Date: 02/07/2000 9:46:07 AM Mountain Standard Time Dear __________> There are another two things wrong with the internet - anonymity & copyright violations. You didn't make it clear if you are the author of this fine piece, or if you have permission to quote it on this list if you are not. Further, it is desirable that this might be disseminated to a wider audience. It would be nice to know what the author's desires are about the quoting of this for other publication. Could you please clarify who you are and what is the copyright status of this pertinent article? Jeff ******************************************** INTERNET GENEALOGY - WHAT'S GOOD! WHAT'S NOT! AND WHAT ARE WE GOING TO DO ABOUT IT? THIS IS HOW I RECEIVED THIS ARTICLE: Recommended reading for those of us interested in genealogy. Perhaps I should have just submitted the website address as above. It appeared to me that it was rather clear who the author is and when & where published. It is already on the internet. Wes