Does anyone have the copyright to forwards. I mean there are millions of forwards going around on the internet. 1000s of websites use them in their content. I have even seen a leading newspaper publish these "forwards from internet" - word to word. If it is available on 100s of websites..is it safe to assume that the author is unknown?
It is never safe to assume anything. Anything created has a copyright holder. Copyrights do expire in time. Got a specific example?
Many. Take for this. Its a short story which I have recieved many times in my mails. http://www.searchingwithin.com/reflections/wordpower.html I searched for the term "A group of frogs were traveling through the woods" and got 606 results from Google. Everybody seems to be using it.
It appears to be old Eastern culture literature. Most likely from an Asian area. You could use this. Ethical use requires a cited source/author. In this case, it is author unknown. Kind of like using the words of Jesus from the bible. You would cite him as the author/speaker, but you don't need his permission Also, there is a difference in using material and citing the source and plagiarising. Additionally, you could not, for example, take a book, copy it, cite it and sell it. How much you use matters as well.