I believe the Washington Post/NY TIMES, etc., to be the legal copyright holders of the material their reporters/writers produce. As such, they have a right (legally, ethically, and morally) to distribute the material in their environment(s) of choice and to profit from that distribution. On the web, that means in the presence of display/banner ads, for which they are paid. when readers refer to the url and link to the page . . . the copyright holders' rights and authorial positions are protected. When readers are shown plain text versions (copied and pasted), the display is not in the commercial context intended by the producer. Distribution in this fashion is akin to shoplifting. I don't believe that one can protect oneself with the "academic" veil on this one. We're not in class, we're not doing research on the list and its behavior (and even if we were, the full text of the copyright protected mateirals would not need to be part of the project), we're no different from college dormies who think it's cool to use napster as a way to not have to pay for the right to listen to music on their computers. except, of course, that we should know better. Edward Lee Lamoureux, Ph. D. Associate Professor, Speech Communication and Multimedia Editor, Journal of Communication and Religion Bradley University Peoria IL 61625 ell@bradley.edu http://hilltop.bradley.edu/~ell Fax: 309-677-3446