E-Mail Copyright

I'm sure you've discussed my first question before. If you just want to point me to a reference, please do so.

1. Copyright in Public Areas What's the latest on copyright of e-mail messages posted in public areas such as lists like this one, newsgroups, forums on services like America Online, etc.

What I've found so far says the writer retains all rights but implicitly licenses such use as is necessary for the specific area on which the message is posted. No such license is implied for reposting to other areas, such as reposting this message to a forum on CompuServe, unless the public area automatically cross-posts, such as this list cross-posting to a newsgroup.

2. Public Domain
America Online's terms of service say that messages posted on forums "shall not" contain copyrighted material. Anyone posting on a forum is assumed to be placing their message in the public domain. Does this hold up? One of my sources said that the concept of public domain is obsolete except for works whose copyrights have expired.

• Mike

Mike Bradley
<mike[_at_]zoser.sphinx.com> Received on Sat Feb 25 1995 - 01:09:37 GMT