Bravo Pat! I so thoroughly agree with your post re: copyright infringement/plagiarism and am happy to see someone bring up this subject. Here is a link to a page that defines plagiarism, copyright, etc. that should help explain the differences between the two and exactly what each means but basically plagiarism is passing off someone else's work as your own and copyright infringement is publishing all or part of a copyright protected book, document, song, etc. with or without credit being given to the author. http://www.library.ualberta.ca/guides/plagiarism/terminology/index.cfm#plagiarism All postings to this, and all other Rootsweb Lists, are copyright protected by the originator and technically you may not forward a post made by someone else without their permission. "Fair Use" means that you may excerpt a small portion of a copyright protected publication and publish it: example, a list of the surnames of Early Settlers of Roane Co. with attritubtion ot the author of whatever book you are taking that info from. Facts of our ancestors lives, births, deaths, etc., are in of themselves public information and not copyright protected; a compilation of those facts can be copyrwritten. ===== Kathi Jones-Hudson MD Tombstone Transcription Project Manager http://www.rootsweb.com/~cemetery/maryland.html __________________________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail Plus � Powerful. Affordable. Sign up now. http://mailplus.yahoo.com