I saw this message and thought that maybe we should address it. I have on my researcher lists folks looking up stuff. Maybe I will remove the copyrighted name and say will do lookups in the 1880 census for example. Thanks for reading this and understanding. Maggie ------------------------------------------------------------------ FORWARDED MESSAGE - Orig: 11-Sep-98 12:13 From: Diana Matthiesen 72613,1415 ------------------------------------------------------------------ I hate to be a wet blanket, folks, but. . . With regard to doing lookups on Broderbund CDs (or any other commercially produced CD or book currently under copyright), I think users need to re-read the copyright information. I believe posting an offer to do "lookups" in Broderbund CDs violates their copyright, in two ways, the first being the most dangerous because it is the most easily prosecuted: 1) Mainly, it reduces the market for their CDs. (Why buy a CD if there's someone out there who will do a lookup for free?) 2) By posting an offer online, you are making the data on the disk available *to more than one person at a time*, which is explicitly outside Broderbund's stated definition of "fair use." Broderbund allows users to share *very limited* amounts of information with friends and family, one person and one datum at a time. Any offer to do lookups broadcast online is an offer to produce multiple data to many hundreds or even thousands of people. So far, Broderbund appears not to have taken legal action against anyone offering lookups. Let's face it, it would be terrible public relations for them to do so. But at some point, if lookups become too rampant (and this is a phenomenon that I perceive happening), they may decide to make an example of someone. And because the legal penalties for copyright infringement are severe (not to mention that you'll spend the rest of your life paying off your lawyer), I would recommend that anyone contemplating making such an offer contact Broderbund and get *written* permission from them to do so. The phone number for their Copyright Permission department is 1-415-382-3135. (However, I can save you the price of that phone call and tell you they will say, "No.") I'm sorry to be so negative, because I use and appreciate online lookups, but of material that is either 1) not under copyright protection (e.g., compilations made by the person offering to do the lookup), or 2) on which the copyright has run out (e.g., anything published in the 1800s), or 3) for which written permission has been granted by the current copyright owner. As a fellow genealogist, I find myself dismayed at having to pay (dearly sometimes) for public records that I believe should be freely available on the web. (Of all the things politicians waste our tax money on, computerizing public records would be one expenditure I would gladly support -- the SSDI and BLM databases are two notable examples of how useful such databases are.) But for the present, as in the past, the fact is that it takes a lot of time, effort, and expense to privately gather, edit, and publish these records. For some of us, genealogy is a labor of love, and we post the results of our *primary record gathering* online for others to use at will, without cost. But until the day comes when all the primary data are freely available online, we should expect to have to pay someone for their efforts if they choose to sell the product of their labor for profit. And we should recognize that THE PROFIT MOTIVE IS WHAT HAS MADE SO MANY PRIMARY RECORDS AND FAMILY HISTORIES/GENEALOGIES AVAILABLE. So, every time we offer someone information off a commercial CD or in-print book, we are reducing the publisher's incentive to create and publish more CDs or books, thus REDUCING the amount of material potentially available and keeping the PRICES HIGH for those of us who do pay for them. That said, I would definitely criticize publishers who will not post indices to their books or CDs or, if queried, will not tell you in advance whether a name is in the book (or at least in the index). However, Broderbund is exemplary in this regard because there is an online index to their every CD, and you have 90 days to return a CD if it turns out not to be useful. What more could one ask? So should we stab Broderbund (and other publishers) in the back by broadcasting offers to do lookups on material that is still under copyright and easily available for purchase? In my opinion -- and, I believe, legally and emphatically -- no. Not without the written permission of the copyright holder. [Note that this is an entirely different issue from offering lookups on out-of-print, off-copyright works that may otherwise be difficult for researchers to obtain. I totally support lookups in such material.] <stepping down off soap box . . . ducking the tomatoes> -- Diana !^NavFont02F0FC00007NGHHVC28323 Maggie's World of Courthouse Dust & Genealogy Fever http://www.infinet.com/~dzimmerm/mindex.html *-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-* God Put Me On Earth to Accomplish a Certain Number of Things. Right Now I am so far behind, I will never die. --- Unknown *-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*