[LINK] Emails can infringe copyright, ruling

[Adam Todd]

At 09:30 PM 16/02/2007, Kim Holburn wrote:
>>At 04:37 PM 16/02/2007, Brendan Scott wrote:
>>> > Business letters can be protected by copyright and forwarding
>>>them to
>>> > others can be an infringement, the High Court has ruled. The
>>>decision
>>> > could have implications for email communication because the same
>>> > principles will apply.
>>>
>>>Well, this would have to fall into the "blindingly obvious" box -
>>>despite some dissembling some years ago.
>>
>>Oh wow!
>>
>>That means next time my father prints a copy of a LINK email I've
>>posted and presents it in court I can slap him with a Copyright
>>infringement because he didn't get a copyright licence from me to
>>print it!
>
>First of all if you publish it on a public mailing list with publicly
>available archives I don't think this would apply.

Two things here:

1.  The Federal Court of Australia has already ruled that I have no control 
over the publishing of my postings to Link on the Link Archive web site and 
therefore I am not responsible for the postings publication.  However nor 
is the "operator" of the Link Mail list responsible for what I post.

2. I didn't give authority for the publishing, but I have no control over 
it at that point.  Just because it is put onto a web site, by default or by 
action of the Mail Lists operation, does not mean that the posting has 
suddenly become public domain and a free for all.  I still retain copyright 
in my writing, and intellectual property in my ideas.  It is simply that 
the information is published.

This is the same as Patent Registration.  If you were to say that the 
causing of information to be published in the Internet is therefore a 
change from copyright to public domain, then all patents are public domain 
because most are available from published web sites.

Unless I explicitly otherwise indicate, anything I create that is unique is 
copyright by me.  As I do not explicitly give permission for my postings in 
link to be used by anyone for any purpose, other than the reading of 
threads and information within Link itself, there is no release of 
copyright.  I still hold that right to prosecute should the information be 
used without permission.


>Second of all I  don't think copy would apply to court evidence.

Absolutely.  Privileged Documents.

But I'm not saying that the material can't be produced as evidence in 
court, I'm saying that the person who prints a copy did not have a lawful 
right to print that copy without my permission.

By all means use the material, but as I didn't licence the person to print 
it, I still retain copyright in the method means and form that the writings 
are produced.  I don't give permission, and I never have, for anything I 
have written in electronic format to be printed on paper and given sold or 
used for any purpose.  Nor do I licence it's use for other things.

I only give permission for people to read my writing in an electronic 
format within the confines of the forum.

>>Do I need a sig for Link:
>>
>>Copyright (C) 2007 all rights reserved by the author. No
>>reproduction by any person is permitted without payment of a
>>copyright licence fee.
>
>That case is in Britain, not Australia so I doubt it would apply and
>as the judge said it's the amount of original thought that went into
>the text, I don't think a sig would make any difference to your emails.

Actually a sig is a part of the creative structure of the writing and the 
(C) mark appearing on anything makes it immediately copyright.

As to the Judgements in Britain, they sure are use din Australian 
Courts.  Even judgements made in the UK days before a a NSW Judge hands 
down a decision in Australia can be used by the Judge in justifying a decision.

Last year in July both sides used judgements from the UK in submission and 
one was debated as to whether it was suitable for use in the situation that 
was being trailed.

Decisions of Canada, New Zealand are also frequently used.

Decisions of the USA are given "consideration" on the foundation that the 
United States has similar community values to Australia and that if there 
isn't a law here that explicitly prevents the meaning of a judgement to 
hold weight, then the judgement of a US court can have weight in Australia 
and hence create Authoritive Law once a Judge makes judgement.

There are some interesting case law reads relating to Human Rights, 
Liberties and Freedoms of Speech in Australian judgements that rely on US 
court decisions as their basis.  However we don't have a Bill of Rights so 
the freedoms aren't implicitly given to citizens in Australia, and nor do 
they exist as rights.

The only rights we have in Australia are to elect a citizen to parliament 
and for parliament o make fair and just laws for the good governance of 
Australia.

We don't even have any rights pertaining to the constructs of the courts.

I'll stop now :)