Re: Never ever send Pavel private mail unless you want him to publish

["Adam J. Richter" <adam@yggdrasil.com>]

>On Sun, 16 Mar 2003, Stuart MacDonald wrote:
>> I'm under the impression that postcards do not carry an expectation of
>> privacy due to their readability during transmission. I'd expect that
>> email would be found to have the similar lack of expectation were it
>> to be tested in court.
>
>That would cover disclosing information from email, but it wouldn't cover
>publishing copies of email.  The general opinion from lawyers and law
>students, when this has been discussed on misc.legal, has been that email
>would be treated similarly to regular mail.  So, copying the entire thing to
>a mailing list or usenet would probably be a copyright violation.  Quoting
>parts of it as part of an argument would probably be fair use.
>
>It's almost always considered extremely rude to unilaterally take a private
>argument public, which should be enough to stop civilized people, regardless
>of the legal issues.
>
>--Tim Smith

	I'm not a lawyer, so don't take this as legal advice, but it
sounds to me like your opinion conflicts with the 1988 US Supreme Cout
case Hustler v. Moral Majority, Inc.  which was explained to me
several years ago when ago, when I asked Yggdrasil's lawyers to look
into the question of reposting email without the author's permission
for discussion purposes (this was before DMCA, but I'd be surprised if
DMCA affected this aspect of fair use).

	Poking around google turned up the following brief description
of the case at http://www.isaacsonraymond.com/fair_use_doctrine.html:

| 	In Hustler Magazine, Inc. v. Moral Majority, Inc.,[29] Jerry
| Falwell, a nationally known fundamentalist minister, made unauthorized
| copies of a scurrilous parody of himself after it was published in
| Hustler magazine.  The Hustler parody portrayed Rev. Falwell as
| engaging in an insidious sexual exploit and getting drunk before
| delivering his sermons.
| 
| 	Under the aegis of the Moral Majority, Rev. Falwell?s conservative
| lobbying group, Falwell sent copies of the Hustler article, together
| with a letter soliciting donations to help finance his lawsuit against
| Hustler, to 29,000 of the organization?s major contributors.  There
| was no question that Falwell had copied the entire Hustler article but
| for ?eight of the most offensive words,? without any attempt to
| transform the original work.[30] Although the Ninth Circuit Court of
| Appeals determined that copying the original to solicit funds for
| Falwell?s lawsuit was clearly commercial,[31] it still ruled against
| Hustler stating that Defendant?s use ?could not have diminished any
| potential sales, interfered with the marketability of the parody or
| fulfilled the demand for the original work.?[32] The Moral Majority?s
| members, the Court observed, would ?probably not be counted among
| Hustler?s readers,? and therefore the defendants, while profiting from
| use of the copyrighted work, had not adversely affected the
| plaintiff?s market for it.[33]

Adam J. Richter     __     ______________   575 Oroville Road
adam@yggdrasil.com     \ /                  Milpitas, California 95035
+1 408 309-6081         | g g d r a s i l   United States of America
                         "Free Software For The Rest Of Us."