On 06/07/18 06:00 PM, Sharon Villines via Groups.Io wrote:
I don¡¯t think email falls under ¡°creation¡± but under letters. And letters do belong to the person to whom they are written aren¡¯t they?
The physical letter _usually_ (^1) belongs to the recipient.
The copyright belongs to the author of the letter.
Having said that, the question of a person replying to such a post and quoting part of the material originally posted would seem to fall into a gray area.
In the US, that probably falls under "Fair Use".
European law, in general, does not recognize "Fair Use". However, such
quotation was usually regarded as trivial, and, as a practical matter,
unenforceable. However, the EU is in the middle of making major changes
to copyright law. Whilst I don't think that the net result will be as
dire as the critics claim, it isn't as minimal in its impact, as the
advocates claim. If the critics are right, then such quoting is legal
only if the author consents to the quotation, and the appropriate
royalty payments have been made. One horror case scenario claims that
blanket waivers are unacceptable, and each contract has to be
individually negotiated. I don't think the European parliamentarians are
quite that stupid. OTOH these are government bureaucrats working in
conjunction with politicians, so who knows.
Is such quotation allowed under the shared commons allowances as a
reasonable use for educational discussions and common discourse?
That depends upon the precise wording of all licenses that:
* the content is distributed under;
* that the distributed has, related to distribution of said content;
* The law in the legal jurisdiction of the person who is claiming
copyright infringement;
Much as I'd like to think that it is never an issue, some people have
far more money than brains, and are perfectly willing to disregard the
advice of their solicitor, to do the money-wasting thing.
Sometimes, the lawsuit is filed, not for financial gain, but because the
plaintiff is deliberately seeking The Streisand Effect.
I haven¡¯t checked the current version but the law used to say "500 words or less" for educational, etc, purposes, and without the intention of replacing the original.
US copyright law doesn't specify a minimum, in terms of either words, or
percentage of work.
^1: The exceptions are usually due to signing NDAs, or similar contracts.
I am not a lawyer.
This is not legal advice.
jonathon
