Re: Copyright There's a lot of gray area in copyright law. I think understanding the basic concept is important. Copyright is the legal exclusive right of the author of a creative work to control the copying of the work. In the US, almost everything created privately and orginally after 1 Apr 1989 is copyrighted and protected whether it has a copyright notice or not. A note abt some of the books that have been printed on public records. Facts can't be copyrighted, but organization of the facts can be. When I first started doing look ups for people, I gave information with no limit. But after getting to know some of the people who published the records books, I reevaluated my position. These people have spent hours, days, weeks and/or months to make the information available to those of us who can't visit the courthouses, cemeteries, etc in our area of research. Most of them ask a fair price for the books they print. Considering the time they spend in travel and research and money they spend to have the book printed, it seems only fair that they should recoup the money spent and even be repaid some for their time. They aren't making a lot of money and those that I know are usually putting it back into another book. Most libraries have a notice posted near the copy machine regarding reproducing copyrighted material. It wasn't much of a leap for me to believe that wholesale copying of information from a copyrighted book was inappropriate. I, personally, decided that I feel comfortable enough looking up a couple of names or a surname. For more than that, I think the researcher should purchase the book. And a reminder that when doing a look up, always, always, always cite the source and compiler/editor. To quote Dennis Miller: "Of course, that's just my opinion, I could be wrong."