Matthew S. Hallacy writes: > The email was sent to a public list, with no expectations of privacy. > The person sending the email published it by clicking the send button > -- not only to the list, but to the archives as well. This isn't a privacy issue; this is a copyright issue. Posting a message to a mailing list may grant an "implied license", as stated in Steven J. McDonald's document, cited by Randy Burns. This "implied license" is not granted in perpetuity. The copyright holder has the right to revoke this license at any time. > I've heard of a few cases like this, and none of them made it to > court. Then it would be prudent to err in favor of the copyright holder. > Not necessarily, an e-book is not copied every time it's read, and > the owner maintains the copyright. Fair use lets you copy material for your own use, assuming you have a right to use that material in the first place. This certainly does not cover publishing the material. > By sending the message to the list they caused the message to be > copied to every person on the list, and into the archives. Nobody > infringed in their rights, they knowingly made the decision to do it. The "implied license" would seem to cover this. But that right can be revoked at any time by the copyright holder. > This is why every magazine with a 'user feedback' section clearly > states > that 'all letters sent to <magazine> become the sole property of > <magazine company>', you cannot say 'hey, i changed my mind, it was > stupid > to say that' then try to retroactively have every copy of that > magazine changed. I have never had to consent to that to post to any mailing list. Have you? This page has some good information about copyright: http://www.templetons.com/brad/copymyths.html -- David Phillips <david at acz.org> http://david.acz.org/ _______________________________________________ TCLUG Mailing List - Minneapolis/St. Paul, Minnesota http://www.mn-linux.org tclug-list at mn-linux.org https://mailman.real-time.com/mailman/listinfo/tclug-list