Copyright on the Web seems to be a difficult concept for people to understand. If you did not write or create the article, shoot the photo, or compile the data, you need permission from whoever did before you can use it--on your web page, as a handout, whatever. If you don't, you're stealing--and stealing is illegal as you know.

Copyright is the right of the owner to reproduce or permit someone else to reproduce copyrighted works. Copyrightable works include articles, stories, journals, or computer programs; pictures and graphics; blueprints of architecture; music and song lyrics; plays and screenplays and recordings, including sound, musical and verbal.

In genealogy, dates and names are not under copyright but comments of all kinds are. If you copy my ancestor's name and his dates born and died and where those happened, you are within your rights. If I write "John and Henry Hahn were both on the 1830 census of St. Francois County, city of St. Francois, MO" you may not copy this.

If you're not sure if an item is copyrighted, it probably is. Check the Internet for articles about "Genealogy and Copyright" or whatever you are thinking about stealing. There is a very good article here.

DON'T BE A THIEF!