Our policy has long been the author retains copyright and posting to the list does not abrogate that right. Posting to the list grants other subscribers the right to read the material, the right to quote it in replies to that same list. It grants the list the right to distribute the material to subscribers and to store it in the archives, from which it may be retrieved for reading purposes only. One printed copy may be made for personal use only. Any other use requires permission from the author. As to what Rex said about publishers getting a hammerlock on copyrights, well, the U.S. didn't have to sign the Berne convention, but if we didn't there would have been little protection for U.S. others. I will agree that it does look like "public domain" is a dead issue, ain't gonna happen. I don't think it's "right" either, but, what can you do? You going to talk the governments of all the signatories to go to the older U.S. concept of limited copyright duration, can be renewed once? Douglas