Legal Question in Intellectual Property in California

I am interested in publishing a book that will contain several email messages I have received from strangers on the internet. Does the Copyright Act cover personal email messages? Would it help if I deleted all identifying material such as names, phone numbers, email addresses, etc. from the messages?

Thank you!!


Asked on 10/06/09, 1:53 am

1 Answer from Attorneys
Keith E. Cooper Keith E. Cooper, Esq.

Copyright law covers all types of writing that can be duplicated and distributed, so yes it covers e-mail. The owner of the copyright in an email is the person who sent it, not the person who received it. Deleting identifying information does not give you ownership or protect you from an infringement claim.

You should get permission from the people who wrote the emails before you publish them. If that is not possible, you might just summarize and paraphrase what was said without identifying the source.

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Answered on 10/06/09, 1:12 pm


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