While John is correct I can see this becoming more of
an issue than he implies. I can imagine large
organizations involved in unpopular actions trying to
back track and cover their tracks.
For instance: your client receives a cease and disist letter. In response your client posts the letter on the web and calls the local news. If the company wants to cover its tracks, but you client stands firm and refuses to sign a confidentiality agreement as part of the settlement, the company can threaten to sue for copyright infringement to at least have the scan of the letter removed.
This is not what I would call a successful strategy, but then I see bad strategies every day. From the organization's point of view you have a steaming CEO who wants that letter out of public circulation ASAP. What else is an underpaid in-house attorney to do to achieve that goal?
In many cases the threat of copyright suit is enough to stop copying that is very clearly fair use. Imagine the client above is a small library and this strategy doesn't seem so absurd. I only hope this strategy doesn't gain traction.
Keith
PS: In some circuits you can file the copyright registration on the way to the courthouse. If you are only trying to get the letter removed, that will be sufficient. If you are trying to get damages it may be good enough too, depending on the timing.
> At 2:10 PM -0500 2/10/05, James Love wrote:
> >This is a pretty basic question, but what is the
> law with regard to
> >the copyright on a letter that you receive from
> someone. If one
> >gets a cease and desist letter, a rejection of an
> article, a letter
> >of recommendation, or countless other letters or
> emails specifically
> >sent to a person, can the person receiving the
> letters publish them
> >in a book, a web page, etc, without permission? I
> see a fair amount
> >of this taking place, but don't fully appreciate
> the legal issues.
> >
> >Jamie
> >
> >--
> >James Love, Director, CPTech, http://www.cptech.org
>
> It's a fair use issue. I think the leading case is
> Salinger v.
> Random House, which involved a biography of J.D.
> Salinger that
> included extensive excerpts from his correspondence
> to other people.
> The Second Circuit reversed a district court and
> enjoined the
> publication.
>
http://www.bc.edu/bc_org/avp/cas/comm/free_speech/salinger.html
>
> Application of the fair use analysis is highly
> subjective. The reason
> you see it happen a lot is that hardly anybody
> registers the
> copyright in routine correspondence, and doesn't
> have any reason to
> object. Salinger is (was? is he alive?) a privacy
> freak.
>
> Your question also raises a copyrightability issue.
> J.D. Salinger
> wrote his letters. Your average cease and desist
> letter, rejection
> letter, recommendation letter, is copy-and-paste
> boilerplate, author
> unknown.
>
> If you have an actual situation that might lead to
> litigation, we
> should talk about it off-list.
>
> John Noble
>
>
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