If someone emails you (over an issue threatening legalities against your website) and you post the email (say, on a blog) would this be copyright violation and could they take you to court over an email they sent to you that you posted? I mean, I can sort of see it from both ends. Thanks,
Email is protected by copyright. That does not mean that you can't post it to be seen. It does mean that without permission to do so the posting of it would need to be consistent with fair-use. Fair-use is not as cut and dry as it seems. In addition, depending on what is contained in the email, there may be other concerns (privacy, etc...).
Did the e-mail include a copyright notice? I'm not sure I've heard of a case where posting an e-mail sent to you freely and without a copyright notice would be considered copyrighted.
In the US copyright notice is not required for copyright to be enforced. However, unless the copyright is registered the protection is limited (and who registers copyright on their email?).
If the email specified confidentiality between parties, you are in trouble if they want to press on for contempt of copyright.
Let me put it another way and why I think that copyright without a copyright notice is going to be hard to enforce: think of an e-mail as a gift freely given to someone else. No money changed hands, no statement given that the gift had to remain in my possession. Why can't I resell it? Without specific notice of what rights you wanted to retain over that gift, it's my gift to give away/sell/do whatever. You can't close that barn door after the fact and expect to enforce rights you didn't assert ahead of the transgression.
if ur mocking the email in public, dont not worth being sued. email being copyright, wierd idea though...
You can think that all you want, but the courts do not agree with you. By your logic, if a writer were to give me a draft of his/her new book before it was published and registered for copyright then you would have the right to put it on the web. You don't. Owners of copyright do not have to list their rights to you in order to enforce them. They already have the rights automatically. It works in the reverse order, a copyright holder must explicitly give you rights to use their work, Sending an email does not count as giving you the right to post it on the web. The fact that the email is not registered for copyright and that no money changed hands only limits the type and amount of an award that the sender could get in a lawsuit, but it does not protect the infringer from being sued. It is well established in US case law that the author of a paper letter owns the copyright, not the recipient. That means only the author has the right to make copies or distribute a letter. That protection would extend to email as well.
You don't have to register a copyright to have copyrights on a document. You DO need to state on the document that the contents are copyrighted if you want to give that document to someone else and retain rights. If someone hands you something and doesn't specify that it's not a gift for you to do with as you please, why can't you do with it as you please? It's ridiculous to assume that the person who claims a copyright actually holds it if they do nothing to enforce it or even to say anything about it. As for being sued: anyone can sue anyone. It's whether the courts takes the suit seriously that matters. And in a case of an e-mail being posted (the original topic of the thread), if the sender of the e-mail wanted to have copyrights to the e-mail after freely sending you this gift of an e-mail, you'd think they would have put one on the e-mail. If you say it's "well established US case law", then please cite the cases that pertain to e-mails freely sent with no disclaimer or copyright. I will be curious to read the cases and comment on what the courts have found. Thanks!
I think it depends on how seriously you take the threats in the letter. If you feel their claims are without merit (I assume the reason you want to post it is to refute it) then why should you fear posting their baseless claims? I think you absolutely have a right to display anything anyone sends you related to the legality of your website; let them sue. Reprinting and forwarding e-mails is a legitimate and common practice, and you have a huge legal leg to stand on if anybody's litigious attorney disagrees; consider the many spam alert sites which print e-mail spam as a warning. If your actions would be illegal, these sites would also have problems. No judge will want responsibility for such a wide-ranging and poorly planned ruling, and I think a competent lawyer would know that from the get-go. By the way, if someone brings a spurious lawsuit against you, they can be liable for damages, not just attorney's fees, and you might wind up with their domain. On the other hand, if your material actually did infringe, according to the original claim, you should just take down the offending content and not start a war. If you are in the right, document every step and damn them if they don't like you publicizing their e-mail.
@amf-flt Incorrect. Copyright notice has not been required in the US since 1989. Rights given under copyright are held by the owner of the copyright unless explicitly given to another. From US Copyright Office Circular 38b In 1987 J.D. Salinger was able to stop the publishing of a biography because it contained letters that he had written to other people (that gave the letters to the bio author) because he did not give permission to use them. He had not affixed a copyright notice nor given specific instructions about the letters. Yet he still won on copyright issues two years before the requirement to use the copyright notice was dropped from the books. Anybody can file suit for anything, but until it actually makes in court to be decided by a judge, it's not really suing. Copyright infringement will not be thrown out of court. However, without registration of copyright the most that can be done is that you are fined for actual damages, earnings from the content and a takedown. With a copyright registration additional damages may be sought, and the defendant cannot try to claim the "I didn't know" defense. In addition, if an author registers a work within three months of the initial release of the work, the author can seek statutory damages and legal fees even if the infringement occured before registration. Meaning a person sends you email, you post it two weeks later, they find it a week after that on your site, and then they manage to register it within the next two months, they can sue you not just for the takedown notice and actual damages. Now they can sue for legal fees and additional damages. What I said was well established case law is that copyright of a paper letter is held by the author of the letter. The J.D. Salinger case is a good example. There don't need to be cases specifically about email without a notice of copyright because the changes to the law in 1989 clearly state that such a notice is not required. Now, that is not to say you could never use an email sent to you. All works are subject to "fair use" exemptions. In the example given, using the email for commentary might be fair use. However, if the blog it is placed on contains ads then it may be seen as commercial use which would eliminate any fair use claims. Another way to be able to use email from somebody is if it was sent from a form on your site where you explicitly state that by using the form the author agrees to allow you to post the email on their site. Then, by using the form the author has explicitly agreed to your terms. @amanamission Reprinting and forwarding emails is a common practice but something being common does not make it legitimate or legal. Smoking weed is a very common practice, but still illegal last I checked. Now, there are other issues to copyright that do make a difference. If I merely forward an email to a friend then suit probably cannot be brought against me. They could file, but it wouldn't make it to court. The difference here is that there is no commercial benefit to myself or to my friend. Posting that email on a blog (that probably contains ads) could be a very different story. As far as sites that publish spam email, it would depend on several factors. If there is no commercial gain then the most that would be likely to happen would be the site would be required to remove the content. Taking a site to court is the most expensive way to have content merely removed, so it doesn't happen often. Most of those sites do not have ads or require membership. In addition, much of the spam email on those sites (not all) comes from outside the US. Copyright is not an issue. In addition, many of those emails are from people commiting fraud. They are unlikely to take somebody to court. It's the same reason the mafia doesn't report when people steal from them. @OP There are ways to reprint an email without running afoul of the law. A blog with ads may constitute infringement. Since the person that you are talking about has already established that he/she is a jerk, be careful about the way you use the email.
I just got a threat about posting an e-mail with this: This message, together with any attachments, is intended only for the use of the person to whom it is addressed and may contain information that is legally privileged and confidential and is exempt from disclosure. If you are not the intended recipient, you are hereby notified that any dissemination, distribution or copying of this message and any attachments is strictly prohibited. If you have received this message in error, please notify the original sender by return e-mail or telephone and delete this message, along with any attachments, from your computer. Attachments and email contents are Copyright Is this enforceable under International Copyright Law?
pls explain clearly i wnt to know tht if i get any email in my mail id then can i publish at any plavce tht email???????
I got this at the end of an e-mail: Attention ****************** This message, together with any attachments, is intended only for the use of the person to whom it is addressed and may contain information that is legally privileged and confidential and is exempt from disclosure. If you are not the intended recipient, you are hereby notified that any dissemination, distribution or copying of this message and any attachments is strictly prohibited. If you have received this message in error, please notify the original sender by return e-mail or telephone and delete this message, along with any attachments, from your computer. Attachments and email contents are Copyright . I will leave the name of the person and his organization out for now. It was in response to my posting an e-mail from this person on an Atheist Web Group to which I belong. I have been complaining about the organization's flogging Christianity and "Intelligent Design" in an underhand method. I did not agree to any legal contract regardiing copyright on this e-mail. From what I have been told by Administrators of the Atheist Group I belong to, this copyright notice has no legal rights. especially as the threat to me comes from Washington DC and I am in Australia. I hope this is sufficient information for you. Regards