Re: Email Fair Use

["John Mitchell" <mitchelllist@xxxxxxxxx>]

I have always thought it was a matter of time before someone sued for
copyright infringement done by forwarding an email. As for your question,
the first consideration is whether your email is copyrighted (most messages
probably are, particularly those on a group chat), and whether the portion
she copied was protected. Assuming it is, my guess is that you did not
register your "work" with the Copyright Office, so statutory damages don't
appear to be available.

As for fair use, you have not given us enough to go on. What portion did she
use? How was it used? Was is part of a discussion (fitting into the
criticism and comment pigeon-hole)?

Technically, I am could infringe your copyright in your message below by
merely replying to it like this, with the quoted text left in the message.
My guess is that the courts will recognize the widespread practice of
responding to e-mails without deleting the original message, and give the
practice wide latitude. Similarly, there may be some argument that people
who post to rather public lists give implicit permission to reproduce them
in the ensuing discussions. Here, the person reproduced your message in
another list, so such implied permission would be lacking. I suspect,
however, that given your ".edu" address, the lists probably entailed some
"discussion" which, practically by definition, means criticism and comment.

I suspect that your post was intended to contribute to the discussion rather
than to be the first publication of something over which you intended to
exert your exclusive rights under Section 106. Your best practical
resolution may be to express your concern directly to her, resting more on
the breech of list etiquette and list rules than infringement of copyright.

John

On 9/5/07, Lincoln Keiser <lkeiser@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>
> Hi,
>
> I'm new to the list and have a question I hope you all can help me with. I
> belong to a number of email chat groups. They state that posts are
> copyright protected and cannot be distributed outside the list without
> permission of the author. Recently the content of a post I wrote on one
> list was incorporated by someone in post written on another list without
> my
> permission. She did acknowledge that I was the author of the incorporated
> material. Is this a violation of  copyright laws, or does Fair Use protect
> her?
>
> Thanks for taking the time to answer my question.
>
> Linc
>
>


-- 
John T. Mitchell
http://interactionlaw.com