[Air-l] ethics - aol data

[burkx006 at umn.edu]

On Aug 30 2006, Richard Forno wrote:
>>From a conceptual view, I can understand trying to espouse a theoretical
> view how the case could be made that an e-mail message is a "product" and 
> therefore its author retains any copyright/ownership/rights to it, just 
> like any other piece of intellectual property.
>
>But from a practical perspective, I think it's futile to even think one can
>exert ownership of the bits-n-bytes of a message, copies of the message in
>archive files, etc, etc, etc.  (Of course, not having read Nancy's remarks
>on the matter yet, perhaps I am offering these views prematurely.)

One can assert ownership, and some people do. This has been a problem at 
least as far back as the mid 90s, when the Dejanews USENET archive first 
started collecting publicly available messages in a searchable database. 
Dejanews developed a policy, still followed by Google and others, of 
removing messages on request of the owner. The archive would still 
techically be in violation of the message author's copyright, but agreeing 
to remove the material usually avoids assertion of the right.

>You mean when you encounter .sig files reading something like "This email
>message is for the sole use of the intended recipient(s) and may contain
>confidential and privileged information. Any unauthorized use or disclosure
>is prohibited. If you are not the intended recipient, please contact the
>sender by reply email and destroy all copies of the original message. "
>
> FWIW, while I don't have any case laws to cite, the IT security folks / 
> computer crime investigators I work with generally feel such disclaimers 
> are intended more to reassure corporate muckety-mucks and their counsel 
> than present any real "teeth" for law enforcement purposes.

I don't understand the law enforcement comment, but these disclaimers are 
intended to prevent waiver of attorney/client privelege if the e-mail ends 
up in the wrong place. For which purpose they have "teeth." Why people 
besides attorneys seem to have adopted them is a mystery.


-- 
Dan L. Burk
Oppenheimer, Wolff & Donnelly Professor
University of Minnesota Law School
229 19th Avenue South
Minneapolis, MN  55455
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