Re: Email Disclaimers...Legally Liable if breached?

[Troy <gimmespam () gmail com>]

On 10/11/07, Valdis.Kletnieks () vt edu <Valdis.Kletnieks () vt edu> wrote:
> The problem is that it's *really* hard to write the disclaimer with a
> copyright
> attached to it.  The tricky part is to figure out how to make it *legal*
> to
> cite the text in a reply - how would you phrase your copyright statement
> to
> allow what I'm doing in this message?


I wouldn't necessarily have to. Fair use would cover the use of the text in
a reply. After all, you're quoting part of my message.

Besides, this is a public forum, so one would expect you to be able to quote
anything I write here. On the other hand, if I were to send you a private
message with a disclaimer that included a copyright statement and prohibited
you from distributing the email to third parties, you would be able to
include the text in a reply to me, but would not be able to forward the
message to somebody else.

Also, copyright doesn't cover *ideas* well - so if the leaked e-mail has
> info
> about (for instance) a planned hostile corporate takeover, the
> *information*
> has escaped, and copyright only prohibits *that expression* from being
> copied.
> If I rephrase and restate the info, there's no copyright issue with my
> then
> telling all and sundry about the corporation that's about to have a
> hostile
> takeover...


That's why the copyright would be in addition to the standard disclaimers
we're seeing. It certainly wouldn't hurt to include it, and it would carry
more weight in court if somebody sent the message verbatim to somebody else.

Keep in mind, I'm not saying people should be doing this. Disclaimers on
emails are pretty silly and are downright stupid when they're sent to a
email list or a newsgroup. I was just surprised that the people who do use
these disclaimers aren't also including a copyright notice.

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