Steve,
  Excuse me, but you fail to realize that you copied my transcription of
old data, and my transcription is copyrightable. I am very much involved
with the USGenWeb project and am quite aware of what is copyrightable
and what is not. The data at the archives is waiting there for you to go
and make your own transcription. It's public domain, but my
transcription is not public domain. My transcription is copyrighted. It
is my work.

I am working on a book with old newspaper transcriptions. When I publish
it, don't you think that it's copyrightable. It most certainly is. I
have taken technology courses via the college of library science at USC.
I have learned quite a bit in those courses. If someone puts up a
webpage and places a copyright on the page, it's copyrighted.  No one
else has the right, morally or legally, to make a copy of it, in any
way, shape, or form.

This issue was at one time a hot topic on the USGenWeb all list. What
you have done is against Rootsweb's policy. It is also immoral. I
promise you that if you copy and publish any of my work across your list
again, I will contact Rootsweb. I have already consulted the SCGenWeb
State Coordinator about this. (As you may know I am assistant
coordinator for SCGenWeb.) If anymore data is harvested from an SCGenWeb
page and sent out across the list, which resides on Rootsweb, we will
both contact them. They are adamant that copyrights be honored. Read the
blurbs on the data in the South Carolina Archives on Rootsweb. The info
in copyrighted to the transcriber. The info that you sent to Sumter has
your name on it and a copyright blurb giving you credit. If you don't
choose to believe what I am telling you, then contact Brian at Rootsweb
and see how he feels about you harvesting info and sending it out across
a list that is on the Rootsweb server. It is not to be done.

By the way, I have noticed before info that you have cut and pasted from
some of my pages, word for word, such as from the Clarendon Archives
page and placed on your web page. That is a no no also.

I received over a hundred e-mails, privately about my message to you.
All were in favor of what I had said. People don't like seeing you
harvesting other people's hard work and sending it out across the list.
The url is what is needed and a bit about what's on the page.

Cynthia R. Parker
SCGenWeb Assistant State Coordinator