On 3/2/2011 12:19 AM, Mariusz Kruk wrote:
On Wednesday 02 of March 2011, Patrick Ben Koetter wrote:
From a legal perspective I will point out that any e-mail you
receive is (at least in the US, but most other countries too)
considered copyrighted by the sender. Under copyright law the
sender has the right to control expiration of content they create,
German law will not work in this case for the same reason it won't for
email disclaimers too. The rationale is that "one-sided agreements rescind
a contract", which is the case if a sender declares e.g. a copyright on a
message or wants "to control expiration of content they create".
Furthermore, let's not forget that while maybe in US every possible imaginable
thing can be covered by copyright law, in sane countries copyright only
applies to "works". Work has to be creative.
That applies in the US also.
If I just send you an email
saying "pay me back my $200 you stupid bastard", it doesn't make it a
copyrighted work.
It depends on how you say it. The above statement isn't original
so because of that alone it's not creative.
Furthermore, many copyright laws have "permitted use"
(sorry, don't know the right english term for it) instead of fair use which
explicitly says what can be done with a work after its first publishing. And
this use cannot be limited by any contract,
Untrue when it comes to electronic works, as a result of WIPO Copyright
1996.
Ted
