Posting private correspondence

I would never do it, myself. I think it's wrong to post a private correspondence publicly without asking the other correspondent permission to do so. I know nothing of the instance you're talking about...just offering my own two cents on the privacy part.

Under the circumstances, I think the law would rule 'fair use' for criticism, commentary and reporting. It was in the public interest that the email came to light as it revealed/led to the revelation that Cooks Source was involved in repeated and balant copyright infringment.

Letters/emails are a right pain, in terms of copyright. The recipient owns the physical letter, but the writer still retains copyright. If you were found to reproduce correspondence without permission that did not fall under fair use, you'd be committing copyright infringement yourself.

Essentially, yes, private correspondence should be kept private. But fair use still applies, so if you reveal wrongdoing then you can't insist the recipient keep quiet about it. Private =\= secret, of course.

I think there's a HUGE difference between:

a) social emails sent among friends/lovers/family, and

b) business emails sent in response to a notice that litigation might be in the offing.

The social emails might well have an expectation of privacy, but a response to someone asking for compensation to avoid litigation? Not so much.

Note that I'm not offering this as a legal opinion -- this is outside my expertise -- just my belief that there's a huge difference between publishing an ex-lover's letters and publishing a business letter.

Personally, I don't share information received in such a way without asking permission.

At the same time, I don't write or say anything on the Internet that I wouldn't yell on a street corner.

She didn't post the entire thing, just a small (probably the most shocking) part of it. And if she hadn't, surely Cooks Source would've denied the entire thing, right?

Yes, there is privacy. But this was a business letter, she only posted a small part, and it was a pretty big issue. I don't think there's anything wrong with it. Isn't it the same as someone here posting a small part of a personal rejection or something, and asking what it meant?

There are some things, I think, that trump copyright. So the individual takes the risk of disclosing, as this author did. I, for one, have no problem with her doing so in this case.

I agree with fair use. The only private correspondence that I have ever posted publicly was a completely asshat email that came to me on a dating site, which I posted to my relationship advice blog with the identifying details changed.

nkkingston said:

Under the circumstances, I think the law would rule 'fair use' for criticism, commentary and reporting. It was in the public interest that the email came to light as it revealed/led to the revelation that Cooks Source was involved in repeated and balant copyright infringment.

Letters/emails are a right pain, in terms of copyright. The recipient owns the physical letter, but the writer still retains copyright. If you were found to reproduce correspondence without permission that did not fall under fair use, you'd be committing copyright infringement yourself.

Essentially, yes, private correspondence should be kept private. But fair use still applies, so if you reveal wrongdoing then you can't insist the recipient keep quiet about it. Private =\= secret, of course.

Click to expand...

I can't imagine how "fair use" could possibly apply to any bit of private correspondence, though if there's something illegal about the text (to quote one poster "asking for compensation to avoid litigation" sounds like it might be extortion), one should surely be able to share evidence of a crime with police without fear of losing a suit for violation of copyright. It might be published in the course of a trial, but that's due to the writer writing something illegal and getting caught, not due to the recipient sharing with police.

Publishing such a thing or even part of it may well be morally justified in that the sender may be a (for lack of a more precise term) scumbag and the public should be told, but as I understand it it's still copyright infringement.

Would someone post a link to an article on this, or to the blog in question? Context wouldn't (shouldn't?) change my opinion, but it would still be interesting to see all the known facts.

Asking for compensation to avoid litigation is NOT extortion. It's the standard procedure when a person has been the victim of a wrong (i.e., plagiarized or been hit by a car). The standard first step, before filing in court, is to send the wrongdoer a letter, setting out the basis for the litigation and, optionally, when the wrong is blatant and the case is too small to be worth either party hiring a lawyer or even paying small claims court fees, a suggested amount of damages to settle without going to court.

It's extortion when the person making the demand has no legitimate or even arguable right to compensation (as when they're trying to get money to hush up something the proposed payer did and is ashamed of, when whatever that actions was would not entitle the demander to compensation if it were made public; e.g., person A has an extramarital affair and person B -- not the wife -- finds out about it; person B doesn't have a right to money from person A, so a demand in lieu of publishing the information is extortion).

But what happened in the incident that started this thread was that a person who believed she had been wronged (the alleged victim of plagiarism), sent a letter to the person who'd allegedly done the wrong (the alleged plagiarist), suggesting that she would settle her copyright infringement claim for a token amount paid to an educational institution instead of wasting court time and causing everyone to enrich their attorneys.

Of course, the proper response to a letter like that is for the recipient to call her attorney and let the attorney respond. If she answers, admitting the wrongdoing, that's certainly going to be used in court against her, and it's going to be part of the discovery process. It's hard to believe the writer of such a letter would have any expectation of privacy.

Not giving a legal opinion here, just information on the difference between a plaintiff's demand letter and extortion.

Any other arguments aside, I don't think this really qualifies as private correspondence. This was Griggs contacting the writer /in her role as a representative of Cooks Source/, and thus counts as a response from the business rather than the individual.

As such, I don't see posting it as much different than someone posting the Verizon Math Fail phonecall audio all those years ago. Or anyone who's gone through a bad TSA screening recently who happened to get it on cellphone video posting the video online. Or anyone else quoting bad experiences with a particular business or agency on Yelp or BBB reviews. Or people posting snippets of their experiences with PublishAmerica here on the board (including the angry 'tone warning' e-mails) in hopes of warning others off.

Just to honor my own request, Google finds many articles on this story starting with the third link.

And here's the blog post that apparently prompted the OP:
http://illadore.livejournal.com/30674.html

Ben, thanks for the links. It always helps to understand the larger context of the event...

After reading the blog and the email copy, I have to say that I am outraged by the attitude of the editor, not the author. Everything in that email is an excuse and self justification. You don't edit some one elses copyrighted work unless you have a contract giving you the rights. You don't lift someone elses copyrighted work without their written permission.

This editor needs to be taken to task if this is how she operates.

Shame...shame...

Thothguard, she has been. Very thoroughly. In the process, it was also found that she'd committed copyright infringement against the Food Network and Disney. Several of her advertsiers have dropped out, and I'd be greatly surprised if the magazine survived (since her entire business model seem to have been 'steal from the internet').

I can't imagine how "fair use" could possibly apply to any bit of private correspondence, though if there's something illegal about the text (to quote one poster "asking for compensation to avoid litigation" sounds like it might be extortion), one should surely be able to share evidence of a crime with police without fear of losing a suit for violation of copyright. It might be published in the course of a trial, but that's due to the writer writing something illegal and getting caught, not due to the recipient sharing with police.

Click to expand...

IANAL, but I'm fairly certain fair use applies to everything except government confidential material. Why on earth wouldn't it? You obviously wouldn't register copyright on private correspondence, but it's still copyrighted. The letter is copyrighted to the writer, and as such the recipient can exploit fair use to report on the content of the letter.

(letters are a pain in terms of copyright, at least in the UK, because they're not specifically mentioned in the copyright act, but it's generaly understood the same rules apply to them as everything else.)

Actually, the UK act has been amended recently, so reporting is only fair use if the work has already been communicated to the public, which means private correspondence might not fall under fair use. I wonder if that had anything to do with Paul Burrell publishing extracts of Princess Di's letters? </cynical>

I wonder if it's been put to the test yet. The way it's phrased, reviews based on ARCs need to be careful about quoting from the novel if it's not available to the public yet...

I can't check the US equivalent, because the website's down for maintenance. I'm really curious about this now.

Rather than posting a direct quote I would try to summarize and then post my responses. If an actual quote is necessary, quote part of a sentence and not huge sections of the document.