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Subject:Re[2]: A Question of TECHWR-L Netiquette From:KnoxML1 <KnoxML1 -at- TEOMAIL -dot- JHUAPL -dot- EDU> Date:Wed, 15 Mar 1995 08:46:36 EST
On use of email messages and posts, someone wrote:
>I see this as an etiquette issue, not a legal issue. (Legally, the
>writer copyrights what the writer initiates, and quotes with
>attribution and permission. The writer can also copyright illegally,
>and few individuals will use the time and money to pursue legal
>recompense.)
__________________
This _is_ a *legal* issue, even if you might get away with it.
Whenever a work comes into the world in tangible form, it is automatically
covered by copyright, regardless of whether it is ever published. The author
controls the copyright until and unless he or she assigns it to someone else.
The author may *register* the copyright by sending two copies of the work and
$20 to the Copyright Office at the Library of Congress (no long, time-consuming
legal hassle). However, registration is NOT REQUIRED for a copyright to be
valid; it is simply useful should there be a dispute in court over who wrote
what first.
Copyright is a tangle of legal issues, partly because the law changed
significantly in 1978 and again in 1989. A ll works published under the old laws
are still subject to the law in force at the time. There is a lot of gray in
what is "fair use," and a bunch more gray on what is publication, but email is
like snailmail, in that the content of letters belongs to the writer, not the
recipient, and may not be published without permission. (For further
information, see _Chicago Manual of Style_, chapter 4)
Publication of e-mail messages without permission is a violation of copyright.
Do not do it.
Margaret Knox
Technical Writer/Editor
Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory
Laurel, MD
margaret -dot- knox -at- jhuapl -dot- edu
