Re: Cash Prize Letter

K S Swigart (katswig@deltanet.com)
Tue, 3 Dec 1996 20:35:51 -0800 (PST)

On Tue, 3 Dec 1996, Wendy Milner wrote:

> Also, do not assume consent to send out private e-mail because
> a person did not respond. Make sure you have their consent before
> you include their response to the issue.

I am going to have to disagree with this here. If you send a post to a
mailing list of over 500 people this can hardly be considered "private."
You have published. By definition, all materials are automatically
copyrighted by the author (for his/her life plus 50 years); however,
copyright (US) laws allow for the reproduction of copyrighted material
for personal use as long as the original author's name has not been removed.

Personally, when I send something to this list (it is big) I
automatically assume that people are going to copy it if they want to.
Pass it around, or whatever they like. If you don't want your words
repeated, don't say them in the first place. (Actually, I feel this way
about my truely "private" mail as well...I had an English teacher in High
School who once told me that if you write a letter, and send it...the
recipient of that letter is allowed to do with it as s/he wishes.)

With the ease of reproduction provided by the Internet, to assume that
postings won't be distributed uncontrolledly (to coin a word)
is a bit naive :)

kat
Orange County, Calif.