Kathleen said: <I appreciate this new information-- and I do plan to read the bill. Just wanted to allay some fears, I hope, that the copyright law for writers has always maintained a practice of what is called "fair use." You give credit to the original author in your manuscript (now "database" it seems) and you are allowed to quote or use a limited portion of their information. > I read the same original paragraph (which is now traveling through many of the lists I subscribe to) in Dick Eastman's Newsletter. When I forwarded it to my editor and the Writers' Group I teach, I said "From Dick Eastman's Newsletter." I notice on some other lists it's just been quoted with no attribution. So much for fair use, eh? Maybe that's what this law is about. And re Penny Kresl's concern - she said <You are so right. I, being a somewhat trusting person, shared a huge portion of my database (abt 1,000), to a cousin I found I was remotely related to...> and Penny later found it spread all over Ancestry.com's World Connect. Some of this may be do to beginners' ignorance, but it's very bad practice. I too had connected with a distant cousin some years ago and shared information with her. Later I found my data on FTM's site (whatever it's called), including private material about my immediate family that I myself would NEVER have put on the internet! I was furious and wrote her, because as I remembered, it even included my mother's maiden name, which is often used by banks or credit cards to identify you (I've since changed that identification to something safer!). So I think she withdrew that info. But that may be partly the reason I still have not sent my own Gedcom to RootsWeb, though I must say, the main reason is that I keep wanting to go back and clean up any errors before I do, and have not had time. Still...! Jean Chapman Snow