Comments on: Who owns an email message?

By: Thelma

Thelma — Sat, 12 Jun 2010 19:42:16 +0000

I might add that the person with whom I corresponded obviously shared my email, so doesn’t that make him liable to the same laws?

By: Thelma

Thelma — Sat, 12 Jun 2010 19:41:25 +0000

I recently received email correspondence in reply to one I generated. I subsequently published the correspondence on a public website. I got an irate email from a lawyer for a third party stating that the emails sent me by the other person were covered by copyright laws. How so? It was open communication, I had no agreement with this person or any prior interaction. He didn’t ask me to keep the emails private nor did I ask him to. In fact, the lawyer made it sound like I was some kind of criminal. I had no idea email was covered under these laws. I’ll bet the average person doesn’t know it either. In fact, the person with whom I was emailing was actually quite rude to me so if anyone has a case, I’d think it would be I.

By: Eldon Judson

Eldon Judson — Mon, 19 Apr 2010 22:39:36 +0000

I had to comment since your post was really interesting, but I was wondering if the new case law that will bring Twitter, Facebook, Myspace into the 21 century is going to happen anytime soon. How will these new technologies fit into our current system and how can they be controlled across cyberspace?

By: Pablo Rodríguez

Pablo Rodríguez — Mon, 21 Dec 2009 12:12:19 +0000

Welcome to standard copyright law (do not forget that I’m not a lawyer and this isn’t legal advice).
The standard here is not “feel free to use it wherever it fits” or even “feel free to use it if it’s fair” (although fair use is a statutory right), but “ask for permission first of all”.
The question about copyright on email messages is more complicated, since quoting and commenting might be considered fair uses in some contexts.
No doubt that copyright should change (to adapt copyright to creativity and not creativity to copyright), but it is not sure it won’t change for worse (Anti-Conterfeiting Trade Agreement).

By: DeeJay1

DeeJay1 — Mon, 21 Dec 2009 06:58:12 +0000

Well, this doesn’t mean they are morally allowed to post it
BTW, some time ago there was a thing called Paranoid Posting License (http://ppl.7thguard.net/), which people attached to their emails

By: iain

iain — Mon, 21 Dec 2009 04:20:47 +0000

I believe, although i have never checked the legality of this issue, that email is treated the same as physical mail, and the recipient owns anything he is sent, and can therefore do whatever he wishes with it, unless there is a contract between the two parties stating otherwise.

By: Grumpy Marmoset

Grumpy Marmoset — Mon, 21 Dec 2009 03:55:28 +0000

In most versions of European law, very little of the above applies. Breach of copyright (which exists from the moment of creation) can only be remedied by application of a loss.
Usually that loss will be a financial loss, e.g. to an author expecting to publish for income. Public figures may sue if they perceive that they have suffered a reputational loss, although they only tend to do so when their less fortunate ejaculations are publicised – some recent cases are encouraging: “The tort of defamation protects those whose reputations have been unlawfully injured. It affords little or no protection to those who have, or deserve to have, no reputation deserving of legal protection.” (Lord Bingham of Cornhill in Grobbelaar vs Newsgroup Newspapers Ltd, also quoted in Supreme Court Justice Keane, Beverly Cooper-Flynn vs RTE Television and Others).
You hold the copyright to any speech or writing, and may include another party’s contribution (e.g. email questions) as fair use context to the interpretation of your own creation. Anyone has the civil right to court proceedings at any time for any real or imagined cause, but will only succeed if there is a demonstrable loss.
Of course you throw all civil rights out immediately if a) you have formed a contract with the other party, b) the other party has reasonable expectation of privacy, c) there is a social convention that is going to come back and bite you on the arse the next time a journalist is interested in your opinion.

By: pinky

pinky — Mon, 21 Dec 2009 01:23:04 +0000

“to me, it seem copyright come into effect after i publish my thoughts ie after i have committed my thoughts to the public”
Sorry, I have to disagree again.
Copyright comes into affect if you copy that’s why we call it “Copyright” and not “Publishersright”
If we follow your discription than what would happen if I write a program only for my friend? Would I have no copyright over my program? Can he do what he wants? Even publish under any terms he like? If copyright only comes into effect after publishing would my friend be the copyright holder since he was the person who publish the work?
I would answer all questions with: No!
Of course it may happen that some country have some special law for communication. Like someone said about Poland. But if not normal copyright come into affect directly after I created a work which is more than a few simple words/sentences.

By: Paul Johnson

Paul Johnson — Sun, 20 Dec 2009 22:06:44 +0000

[legal citation needed]. Since when can you copyright a conversation? If you could copyright a conversation, bash.org would be one walking copyright violation.

By: Leonardo Fontenelle

Leonardo Fontenelle — Sun, 20 Dec 2009 21:36:18 +0000

Here in Brazil a big corporation decided to post on a webside the full content of the interviews made with them. Newspapers like to publish only interesting parts, so the corporation started publishing the whole thing to serve as “their” version. Journalists have been complaining about copyright issues, but AFAIK no law suit until now.
By the way, more than half of the share of this corporation is hold by the Brazilian State. Journalists here are much more critical about the government etc. than about e.g. private business.