Billy............... I feel bad that you are so concerned about copyrights regarding genealogy information. I think that anyone who wants their family research kept secret by copyright (or otherwise) is an unbelievabily selfish person. WHAT IF I COPYRIGHTED YOUR BIRTH DATE? Could nobody else use it again? People who are hung up on not releasing information within their research data have a REAL problem which, frankly, tells me that they are at the top of the list of selfish human beings. I guarantee you that I would get great pleasure in providing you with ANY information that I have that would help you gain new information in your family search. I will use ANY reliable information about my family to help me learn about my ancestory and I will have NO respect for anyone who was lucky enough to find the info and then copyright it and tell me the I can't use it!!! At 02:05 AM 7/7/01 -0400, you wrote: >I have been on all sides of the copyright issue. I have contacted Brent >Holcomb & GPC for permission to do look-ups on the Rowan County Marriage book >he did many years ago (JD is still eating Rolaids on that one...) ; I have >used excerpts from books published by researchers on the family in my Web >site, and I have "published" my transcriptions of public domain documents at >the same Web site. > >Recently, even before the tnjohnso@yahoogroups.com discussion of this matter, >I became curious about what if......what if some unscrupulous person grabbed >the transcripts of public domain documents which I had put on the Web for all >to freely use and put them in a book to sell on Ebay or some such, or at a >pay Web site? > >Basically, the answer is that I am shafted, at least, according to my reading >of the laws. > >My recourse? I have attempted to not tread on a published author's toes, >because God knows, transcription & associated work is real work.....the only >caveat (to me) is if the work is out of print and permission is >unattainable....I am still trying to find the author of a genealogy for the >Charles MARKLAND clan from 15 years ago (the magazine is defunct). > >I have decided to keep on doing what I have been doing....if a scumbag grabs >the stuff, well, I do plant a few mines in the abstracts, but life goes on >and I will continue adding NARA public documents to the Web as well as any >other public domain lists I can find. The Internet is a free medium for the >betterment of every individual and I will not let the hoodlums run me from my >neighborhood! > >In conclusion, to avoid copyright fights, just think of how you would feel if >your work is freely distributed without permission. > > >Best of wishes & sorry for the unsolicited mail, > >Billy > > >P.S. I will have the Gettysburgh Casualty lists for the 5th, 6th, 21st, & >57th NC Regts. on-line Sunday night. I meant to have it done in time for the >Anniversary but I could not find it before we left for vacation last week. >Of course, when I got home, I found it filed under the letter "G"!! """""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" Searching for the Spradley and Ketchum families. Spradleys from SC to TX and Ketchums from VA to TX via AL and IL Check my home page for searchable data base of ancestors. http://www.hal-pc.org/~berrys """""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""