Listservs and Copyright

If someone posts a message to an Internet discussion list (such as CNI-COPYRIGHT), can it be considered an "open letter" and be subsequently republished in its entirety without permission in a periodical such as "Time" or "Newsweek," for example?

What if the publication is free? Is such publication fair use because there is no economic impact?

And what if the message is published with comments? Although the message was posted in it's entirety, is it fair use on the grounds of using it for comment and criticism?

Since it is posted publicly, is the author giving implied permission to copy it (many email programs automatically copy the text of messages in replies), forward it to other lists, etc?

Does the author have any moral or civil rights other than copyright?

In fact, what copyright and other rights do I have in this very message?

-Carl Hawse (bpt[_at_]usbnc.org)       Received on Wed Oct 11 1995 - 18:11:19 GMT