
Ask HN: Who owns received email message? - damir
Here&#x27;s a simple and well known scenario: You sent me an email.<p>Who owns it?<p>A) You do. (Why can I delete it without you knowing?)<p>B) I do. (If so, can I do with it whatever I want, like publish it publicly online or maybe sell it&#x27;s content?)<p>How does this work? Who owns received email message?
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gus_massa
IANAL. I think that it is like a book. If I write it and I sell/give it as a
present to you, then you can do a lot of things with the copy (like burning
it) but I still have the copyright and you can't republish it (outside fair
use).

~~~
greenyoda
But fair use includes things like criticism and parody - the main reasons why
I might want to publish an email I received from somebody.

Also, if someone tries to sue me for damages for publishing their copyrighted
email, they're going to have a hard time convincing a jury that they suffered
any losses: Why would an email they sent to me have commercial value as a
publishable work? (That makes it different from a book.) And they're going to
have a hard time convincing a judge not to throw out the lawsuit, since the
lack of potential damages makes it clear that the lawsuit is simply being used
to harass me.

There may be things that somebody sent me, such as confidential business
information or confidential personal information that I probably shouldn't
publish. If I published something like that, however, they probably would sue
me for damages based on something other than their copyright of the words they
sent me (e.g., invasion of privacy[1]).

But if someone just sent me an email raving at me for something I said on the
web, I see no legal obstacle to publishing that to criticize it.

Of course, when in doubt, consult a lawyer (which I'm not).

[1] [https://legaldictionary.net/invasion-of-
privacy/](https://legaldictionary.net/invasion-of-privacy/)

------
zzo38computer
The receiver now has the message and can delete it, forward it, copy it, etc.
The sender may also keep a copy. Both the sender and receiver can do what they
want with their copies.

(This ignores copyright. I don't like copyright, but with copyright laws,
presumably the sender would be the copyright holder, I should think?)

