John H. Lederer, Thomas Workman, George Abbott, and others have been discussing the copying of emails in terms of something they are calling a " fair use license". I don't understand this term. If a use is "fair use" under the copyright statute, it doesn't NEED to be licensed---and in fact, cannot be, because no licensable rights of the copyright owner are being exercised. That is what is meant by "fair use."
The reason we can freely copy, distribute, and forward the emails of our colleagues is not because of a "fair use license" but because of an "implied license"--the original author's tacit acknwledgment that her email will be subjected to the standard, expected practices of email users on listservs, even though those practices, under normal copyright analysis, might well constitute infringement. Anyone who does not wish her email to be treated in this way need only post a notice expressly limiting the ways in which her copyrighted email may be reused.
Bob Cumbow
<cumbr[_at_]perkinscoie.com>
Received on Thu Jul 16 1998 - 16:10:50 GMT
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