Re: Reality of electronic copyright

Harvey Perlman writes:
>
>I've not been following this discussion much. But is above everyone's
>assumption? Does that mean that when someone writes me a physical
>letter as Dean of the law school, that my copying it and distributing
>it to my assistant deans is against the writers expectation.

This is not a good hypothetical. A letter to you as Dean is presumably for a work related purpose and hence there is an implied authority for you to use that letter in accordance with its purpose (probably to get you to do something or for you to ask your assistant Dean to do something).

If you took a letter addressed to you asking for special consideration which contained some sensitive medical details it might be perfectly reasonable for you to copy it and give it to your Assistant Dean for him or her to handle (dealing only with copyright and not breach of privacy or confidential information and related torts).

But if you gave one to every member of the faculty your action is a little unreasonable but potentially justifiable. If you distributed copies widely amongst the students (or even a single copy) then you would almost certainly be liable for breach of copyright.

I see no reason to make any distinction with e-mail. In some situations it is perfectly reasonable to expect to be able to forward mail. In some it is not. In the absense of established patterns of behaviour for handling electronic documents that we have for traditional documents, we need to use common sense and apply similar standards.

>My instinct is that if expectations were the key that unless I say
>otherwise, I pretty much expect that letters I write will be seen
>(either in its original or copied form) by others.

Would you expect an application for special consideration, or an application for a job in your faculty to be widely distributable by you providing it has no CONFIDENTIAL stamp on it?

Surely the nature of the content of an e-mail message can make it clear that it should not be widely distributed despite no explicit statement.

>I do not of course
>expect to see them published in a collection or otherwise exploited.

But copyright is not just a protection from unauthorised publishing, it is a protection against unauthorised copying which is much more important in jurisdictions which don't have separate privacy torts like the one I'm in at the moment.

>I would be shocked if the rule were that I violate copyright law
>everytime I forward some e-mail message.

Of course this isn't the rule! Some messages will clearly violate if they are forwarded, (like that application for special consideration) some will clearly be publishable by anyone (like messages which have already been published to a broad audience) and some will fall in between.

If in doubt, you should consult the copyright owner who is usually for more accessible on the Net than are authors of more traditional works.

Tim Arnold-Moore      | CITRI, RMIT         | Uni. of Melbourne Law School
tja[_at_]citri.edu.au      | 723 Swanston St     | ----------------------------
Phone: +61 3 282 2487 | Carlton 3053        |       simul iustus
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