emails, privacy & copyright

[Douglas Laycock]

I take her to say it's in part a matter of implied consent to what can be reasonably expected, and that what can be reasonably expected depends in part on custom.  Forwarding to one or a few friends is surely more reasonable, and more to be expected, than forwarding to another list with many readers -- conceivably, many times as many readers as the first list.

On Fri, 1 Oct 2010 14:51:20 -0400
 Doug Edlin <edlind at dickinson.edu> wrote:
>Please don't forward this to Prof. Litman.  But in reading her response, I wondered if there is a relevant distinction between someone posting to a list that the person has subscribed to as opposed to having that message later re-posted to another list, perhaps without explicit permission, which the original poster does not subscribe to. 
>Doug
>
>Douglas Laycock wrote:
>
>>I put this question to my favorite copyright expert.  Her answer below,
>>slightly edited.  I promised that we wouldn't harass her with follow up
>>queries.
>>
>>Douglas Laycock
>>Armistead M. Dobie Professor of Law
>>University of Virginia Law School
>>580 Massie Road
>>Charlottesville, VA  22903
>>     434-243-8546
>>
>>
>>-----Original Message-----
>>From: Jessica Litman [mailto:jdlitman at umich.edu] Sent: Friday, October 01, 2010 1:38 PM
>>To: Douglas Laycock
>>Subject: Re: emails, privacy & copyright
>>
>>Copyright certainly covers email messages, but by posting such a message to
>>an open list, the author is impliedly licensing its reproduction to list
>>subscribers, its archiving and its display, as well as the reproduction of
>>the message in replies to the message or further messages on the same topic
>>posted to the list.  In addition, one would expect the author to anticipate
>>customary practices such as forwarding the email to a non-subscriber
>>recipient.  (That said, copyright law does not take the view that "I have
>>the right to show anyone something that I validly receive as a recipient,"
>>especially if the "showing" involves reproduction, transmission and
>>distribution.)
>>
>>If the author of the email wants to object to the posting of that email on a
>>publicly accessible site, there is a procedure under the copyright statute
>>(in 17 USC 512) for sending a request to the operator of the site asking
>>that the material be blocked or removed.  Website operators don't have to
>>honor such requests, but they routinely do so because it allows them to
>>invoke a statutory safe harbor that protects them from contributory or
>>vicarious liability for copyright infringement.
>>
>>
>>_______________________________________________
>>To post, send message to Conlawprof at lists.ucla.edu
>>To subscribe, unsubscribe, change options, or get password, see http://lists.ucla.edu/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/conlawprof
>>
>>Please note that messages sent to this large list cannot be viewed as private.  Anyone can subscribe to the list and read messages that are posted; people can read the Web archives; and list members can (rightly or wrongly) forward the messages to others.
>>  
>>
>
>-- 
>Douglas E. Edlin
>Associate Professor
>Department of Political Science
>Dickinson College
>P.O. Box 1773
>Carlisle, Pennsylvania 17013
>717.245.1388
>

Douglas Laycock
Armistead M. Dobie Professor of Law
University of Virginia Law School
580 Massie Road
Charlottesville, VA  22903
     434-243-8546