Can I freely redistribute attachments in emails? [USA] Say a friend sends me a 3 minute video of his family vacation in Hawaii. Let's say the video is perfectly innocuous and has nothing compromising. Just boring family stuff. I then forward it to a bunch of other people without his permission. Is this legal? Does my friend have any grounds for legal action against me?
tl;dr Assume everything is as in the original question, but let's also say there's some generic accompanying text in the email to the effect of "Check this out." As nomenagentis mentions, the topic is debated. In particular, copyright is one of those areas that requires the judge to consider the particular facts of the case. In this scenario: The accompanying text likely doesn't meet the required creativity threshold for protection Judges will probably be split on whether the video attachment is protected. This is because they will run the facts through a "balancing test," and that test might tilt either way depending on how the judge weighs the importance of each factor In running this test, the courts look to a number of sources for insight. I consider an expectation of privacy, property, and copyright in turn. Expectation of Privacy This line of thought derives from the Amendment IV right of "people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects" from unreasonable searches. Why start with unreasonable searches when the question is about people forwarding a friend's emails? Two reasons: 1) search and seizure opinions have had to refine the concept of privacy (as a result of having to figure out what law enforcement can use), and 2) the notion of privacy extends well beyond government searches. In an early case the court drew a parallel between email and other forms of communication. It then went on to say "if a sender of first-class mail seals an envelope and addresses it to another person, the sender can reasonably expect the contents to remain private and free from the eyes of the police absent a search warrant founded upon probable cause [...] [O]nce the letter is received and opened, the destiny of the letter then lies in the control of the recipient of the letter, not the sender, absent some legal privilege." United States v. Maxwell, 45 M.J. 406 (Armed Forces 1996) referencing Mil. R. Evid. 501-06 and Gouled v. United States, 255 U.S. at 302 (1921). The bold text is the common sense approach, and it gets quoted far outside Maxwell's context. See, e.g. United States v. Charbonneau, 979 F. Supp. 1177 (S.D. Ohio 1997) (email, "like a letter, cannot be afforded a reasonable expectation of privacy once that message is received.") Likewise, when an individual sends or mails letters, messages, or other information on the computer, that Fourth Amendment expectation of privacy diminishes incrementally. Id. and cf. Gouled. Further, one lacks "clearly established privacy rights in e-mail content voluntarily transmitted over the Internet and stored at a third-party Internet service provider." Rehberg v. Paulk, 611 F.3d 828 (11th Cir. 2010). Elsewhere, by registering for an account with their provider, users explicitly consented (under the Wiretap Act) to the practice of scanning and analyzing emails sent from non-users of the service. In re Yahoo Mail Litigation, 7 F. Supp. 3d 1016 (N.D. Cal. 2014). All that to say: after clicking the send button, writers of emails have a diminished expectation of privacy. Property The diminished expectation of ownership extends beyond the United States. In Fairstar Heavy Transp. N.V. v. Adkins, (EWHC 2012) the court could find no practical basis for holding that there should be property in the content of an email. In a business context, it went on to say there is no proprietary claim unless the content is confidential information belonging to a business, unless copyright subsists in the content that belongs to a business, or unless that business has a contractual right of ownership over the content. Copyright Fairstar singles out copyright as an exception to claims based on a lack of proprietary, but it also bears mention since the video and text might be considered intellectual property. There are two broad approaches to defeating a copyright claim. The first is to claim the material wasn't copyright protected in the first place, and the second is to claim some exception, like the fair use doctrine. For the first approach, 17 U.S.C. § 102(a) protects only original works of authorship, but originality does require a minimum level of creativity. The "amount of creative input by the author required to meet the originality standard is low," but "not negligible." Satava v. Lowry, 323 F.3d 805, 810 (9th Cir. 2003). Further, it's possible the "creative spark is utterly lacking or so trivial as to be virtually nonexistent." Feist Publ'ns, Inc. v. Rural Tel. Serv. Co., 499 U.S. 340 (1991). For example, in Stern v. Does, 978 F. Supp. 2d 1031 (C.D. Cal. 2011), an email on a listserv got redistributed without the author's consent but was found to lack the requisite creativity to constitute a valid copyright. The Copyright Act doesn't define creativity or fair use, so this is one of those areas that relies on judgment. That's why it's hard to get a clear answer on a site like this: a judge would have to weigh the particular facts of the situation to determine whether there has been a violation. For the second approach--fair use--there are four factors to balance. I'm going to summarize the well-reasoned logic of Stern as it applies to each: Factor 1: Purpose and character of the use. In Campbell v. Acuff–Rose Music, Inc., 510 U.S. 569, 579 (1994), the court said when the new work is more transformative, the other factors are less important. In the email forwarding case, the court found the purpose of the forwarding was transformative: it sought to notify others of the existence of the email, which was different than the author's original purpose (soliciting information). Stern at 1045. Likewise, the lack of a commercial use tends to eliminate "the presumption of unfairness." Worldwide Church at 1117. Factor 2: Nature of the copyrighted work. The more factual the work, the weaker the claim against fair use. In Stern at 1046, the email was largely informational. Factor 3: Amount and substantiality of the portion taken. The baseline rule is that "wholesale copying of copyrighted material precludes application of the fair use doctrine." Stern at 1046 citing Marcus v. Rowley, 695 F.2d 1171, 1176 (9th Cir. 1983). Likewise, Wall Data Inc. v. L.A. County Sheriff's Dep't, 447 F.3d 769, 778 (9th Cir. 2006) found that verbatim copying of the entire copyrighted work weighs against a finding of fair use. Id. citing Worldwide Church of God v. Phila. Church of God, Inc., 227 F.3d 1110, 1118 (9th Cir. 2000). As with most things, there are exceptions that do permit wholesale copying. For example, in the email forwarding case, the court thought this factor was neutral because the email was short and the intended use was reasonable. Factor 4: Effect of the use upon the potential market. In Stern at 1048, there was no market impact since it was a private email. Back to the case at hand Note: the analysis would be different if the content were illegal, however the video is "innocuous." Concerning originality, it's likely the video meets the level of creativity required for protection. It is three minutes long and probably required some effort, at a minimum, in framing the subjects. The text probably doesn't meet the required creative bar. As to fair use, the first factor would look at the purpose of the forwarding. Here the forwarding probably isn't transformative in purpose, but I'm assuming it is non-commercial. As to factor two, a family video is probably less informative, while the accompanying text is factual and directive in nature. Factor three asks us to look at a verbatim copying of the content. This is likely not an issue for the accompanying text, but it does appear to weigh against the video content. The last factor isn't relevant since we assume the friend has no commercial market for the home video. Because a judge must weigh the factors, it might go either way: One judge might hone in on the fact that the video meets the creativity bar and may argue the video forwarding fails fair use because the video isn't informational in nature and the forwarding was verbatim rather than derivative. This judge would probably concede the text forwarding was permissible. However, a second judge might say the first fair use factor is more important than the other three, arguing the non-commercial purpose dominates the non-informational nature in factor two and the verbatim character in factor three. This judge would add steam to the argument by citing the diminished expectation of privacy and the lack of property rights that might be said to ensue when copyright fails. This judge might make a final argument related to public policy: it is arguably difficult to police electronic traffic once it is sent, and the party in the best position to ensure the video's control is the initial sender. united-states copyright privacy
What are exactly the legal consequences of "All rights reserved"? Almost none. You have to explicitly grant copyright rights. You don't even need the Copyright notice for them to apply. My "almost" is because the notice makes it harder for somebody to argue "they didn't realize". Do I still need an additional SW License Agreement or is the Copyright notice above + a Disclaimer of liability sufficient? If this is free software (I know you said it isn't), do yourself (and everyone else) a favour by picking a license you like. Preferably either GPL or MIT (depending on your taste). There are far too many free licenses already. Please don't add another. (It also makes it much easier for any user of your software: "Oh yeah, GPL v2. We understand that. We can use it." as opposed to "What are the implications of using this one??" As this is not free software, I think you need a paid-for lawyer (who understands IPR in your juridiction.) Edit: In principle, I believe you don't need anything. The code is copyright, so the customer can't do anything with it (without explicit permissions that you haven't granted). However if the customer doesn't realize that or thinks you won't mind, you then have to go to court to enforce your rights (and probably end up with a disgruntled customer). A short, clear, license will make it clear to the customer what they are allowed to do, and save all that aggravation.
An Art 15 Subject Access Request (SAR) “shall not adversely affect the rights and freedoms of others.” It would be a grave violation of privacy for an email provider to search its users' account contents. It is therefore likely that the email provider would refuse to fulfil that subject request, unless required to perform a search via a court order. Instead, the SAR could be directed to the account holder (Alice or Dave), if they are subject to the GDPR. Depending on the exact legal framework, emails might be protected under confidentiality of communications rules, making such searches similarly illegal to wiretapping. At least in germany, I am fairly certain that an email provider would be criminally liable if they were to disclose emails from their users' email accounts to a third party.
THE FOLLOWING OPINION IS NOT LEGAL ADVICE Based on your screenshot and description, I don't see anything infringing. If the data you are using is from your own sources, and what you show is not a scan or photo of their guide, and your layout is thus unique in specifics (not a direct copy), it wouldn't be an "infringement" as far as copyright law is concerned. Things you cannot copyright: A font (except as a computer font file but not as used in a document). A concept (a main issue here). A idea for a "way" or "order" to display data. Mere data or facts can not be copyrighted nor can ideas. Anything sourced from the US government (trail data, topos, etc.) Something not in printed, physical, or recorded form. That is, the copyright only extends to those things as they are realized in print, or as a recording for audio or video, or a physical statute, etc. A live performance is not copyrightable for instance, nor are ideas. The Law: In no case does copyright protection for an original work of authorship extend to any idea, procedure, process, system, method of operation, concept, principle, or discovery, regardless of the form in which it is described, explained, illustrated, or embodied in such work. For instance, an icon of a TENT is the common form (like a font) of indicating a camp ground. They may be able to copyright the specific instance of their tent icon, but they cannot prevent you from using some other triangle to represent a tent for a campground. And in facts yours is completely different. Displaying data a particular "way" like 1e for 1 mile east is not copyrightable when it is common for the type of guide. It's just data. CONCEPTS AND DATA ARE NOT COPYRIGHTABLE, only the ACTUAL specific page or work in total as rendered. More below, but your page seems totally different. OTHER FORMS OF IP PROTECTION Now, just because some intellectual property can't be protected by copyright, does not mean it is a free-for-all. For instance, a "way" of doing something can be PATENTED (process patent). And "ornamental design" can be given a design patent. A logo or brand name can be given a trademark. Here's an interesting court ruling on the subject of data display. Basically it can't be an abstraction/concept. It has to be in a definable, physical, novel form. NOTE: it has been possible to copyright a "look and feel" but that applies to software, not static printed media. And the courts have been reversing on that a lot as time goes on. BUT WAIT...THERE'S MORE So, I am going to GUESS that you are talking about AT Guide by David Miller? It's pretty rich of him to claim copyright over the "manner of the display of data" when APPARENTLY he is using concepts of data display as described by EDWARD TUFT So, LOL. Is this the guide they claim you are "copying"?? THESE AREN'T THE ICONS YOU'RE LOOKING FOR Okay, so let's go one by one and their claims against you: 1. The way of representing distances between shelters "The Way" of presenting something is not copyrightable, only an expressive or final form. Some forms of "organization or selection" that may make a work in total copyrightable, but not on their own in isolation. 2. The sideways orientation of the elevation profile Presenting some elements "sideways" is not copyrightable (WTF LOL OMG RUS) the same as number 1. Turning an element sideways does not, on it's own, rise to the level of "creative or non-obvious." 3. The icons Your icons are completely different. If you copied and used his ACTUAL icons, you might have had some issue, but your icons are not even remotely the same. Using icons to indicate services or features is COMMON. Not copyrightable. http://www.dmlp.org/legal-guide/works-not-covered-copyright In general, copyright does not protect individual words, short phrases, and slogans; familiar symbols or designs; or mere variations of typographic ornamentation, lettering, or coloring; mere listings of ingredients or contents. (However, copyright protection may be available, if the artwork of the symbol or design contains sufficient creativity.) 4. The convention of representing direction/distance for waypoints. Again, "The Way" of doing something is not copyrightable, nor is data or facts. 1.1E or 2.3NW are common are they not? I've seen similar treatments elsewhere. It's "obvious and not novel." FINAL FORM, EXPRESSIVE FORM is copyrightable NOT FORMATTING CONCEPTS. Basically, he is saying something along the lines of "I'm formatting paragraphs with a double space, so you can't." The "actual" icon drawings he used are copyrightable. Your icons are clearly different. I assume your mountain-top profile line is taken from some publicly available survey source? So long as you never used a scan of the actual line he uses (and even then?), because he cannot copyright the mountain top profiles themselves! DOES HE EVEN HAVE A VALID COPYRIGHT? For that question, I'd say yes with limitations. His work is a compilation of data. Data can not be copyrighted, but the unique arrangement can in context of the work in total. These three conditions must ALL be present (from http://www.rbs2.com/ccompile.pdf): The collection and assembly of pre-existing material, facts, or data. The selection, coordination, or arrangement of those materials The creation, by virtue of the particular selection, coordination, or arrangement of an original work of authorship. So It seem to be that his guide meets these, but his copyright is for his work in total. You are NOT using his data. You are using your OWN data. Based on my reading of Key vs Chinatown Today you are not even close to infringing. You are doing your OWN selection, and your OWN arrangement. It does not matter that you may be using some similar typographic or charting conventions. Those cannot be copyrighted. You are doing your own thing, and "similarity is not infringement." SEARCH AND YOU WILL FIND On the subject of the copyright, here's the copyright on AT guide: https://cocatalog.loc.gov/cgi-bin/Pwebrecon.cgi?Search_Arg=A.T.+Guide&amp;Search_Code=TALL&amp;PID=FgMjtJ244OxoFULrVoob_CEI8bc_M&amp;SEQ=20190506230418&amp;CNT=25&amp;HIST=1 If the link doesn't work due to expiration or a cookie, it should look like this: It's a matter of using the USPTO search engine "its way" — it's not Google and requires specific search strings. Looks like the assignee or owner is https://antigravitygear.com ? Did THEY contact you or David Miller? Or did they claim to be an attorney? I'd love to see the email. Attorneys don't email dunning letters, by the way (though they may if it was a DMCA takedown request I suppose, but I still doubt it.) If it was an attorney it would be via US mail on attorney letterhead. To the best of my knowledge, you can't file proof of service on an email, it has to be USPS or trackable. This means the guy that made the other PDF is annoyed or whatever. If he claimed to be an attorney, that's VERY illegal if he's not. And one final note: Just being non-profit does not absolve you of copyright infringement. But as I said, I see no infringement here. The other answer that asserted these are covered under "works of art" is not withstanding. There is nothing "expressive" about Miller's guide. Also that other answer cited a source for AUSTRALIAN law, not US. Mere typographic elements do not rise to "an expressive work of art". A mountain profile that is nothing but a illustrative line based on data also does not.
Maybe. It might fall under &quot;fair use&quot;, which overrides the general requirement to get permission. The way to find out is to do it, get sued, then try to defend your action by using the fair use defense. If they win in the lawsuit, you can't, if you win, you can. There are four &quot;factors&quot; that have to be &quot;balanced&quot;, plus a fifth. The factors are &quot;the purpose and character of the use, including whether such use is of a commercial nature or is for nonprofit educational purposes&quot;, &quot;the amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole&quot;, &quot;the nature of the copyrighted work&quot; and &quot;the effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work&quot;. The fifth consideration is &quot;transformativeness&quot;. W.r.t. purpose of the use, your use would likely be found to be &quot;fair&quot;, except for the Youtube monetization problem. The &quot;nature of the copyright work&quot; question is primarily about &quot;artistic works&quot; versus &quot;factual works&quot;, so it would depend on what you are taking from. One second might not be substantial, unless that one second is the only reason people pay to watch the copyrighted work. That interacts with the substantiality desideratum: could people get the crucial amusement content of the paid work for free by watching your video? You can read some case law in the links here, and you basically have to get an attorney to analyze your plans to tell you what your risks are.
I do not have the phone number, email, or anything else associated with the account. Well, neither do I - so it must be my account. Unfortunately, the fact that you appear in most or all of the pictures on that account does not prove that you own it. It could be the photographer's account. Do I have ANY options here Can you reactivate the email account associated with the Twitter account? Or the phone number? Either would allow you to reset the password and access the account. You can go to court (in California) and seek an injunction ordering Twitter to delete the photos or give you access. Of course, you have the same issues proving ownership here as you did with Twitter but the court may have different priorities (justice) than Twitter does (corporate protection). I had an idea. If you (or your husband) own the copyright in the photos (i.e. one of you was the photographer) you could issue a DCMA take-down notice because the poster (who, according to Twitter, isn’t you) does not have permission (even if they did at the time: permission can be revoked). Twitter would be unable to contact the account holder and would be required to remove the images when they got no response.of course, if the photographer was someone else, they could do it. Or you could break the law and say it was you, although I would never recommend this even with a near zero chance of being caught.
Much of your ability to sue the email company for damages depends on local and Estonian laws, but the most important aspect is the TOS and user agreement you agreed to when you originally signed up for the service. Read it (though if the portal is now off-line, it may not be accessible). You may have agreed to hold the company not liable for any damages from loss or stolen data, and you may have also agreed to arbitration and to not pursue them in court. It all depends on what is (was) in that agreement, so find a copy of it; though it's possible that some local or Estonian laws may supersede any contractual agreement with the company. And FYI, the email you received concerning the video and demanding payment in Bitcoin is a common scam right now, and the threat may indeed be meaningless.
I would think that this would be treated the same as lost property. In most places, if you notice lost property (for example because the postman hands it to you) you have the choice of ignoring it (don't touch it, don't accept it from the postman), or you have to make reasonable efforts to find the owner and return it. If you as the sender had no idea who received the package so you cannot contact them, and there was nothing in the package identifying the sender, the receiver would be able to keep the package when their efforts of finding the owner fail. But if you manage to contact them, then the receiver knows the owner, so there is no legal excuse to keep the package.