Legal Question in Technology Law in New York

legalities of email forwarding

is it legal to take a series of correspondence and forward to an entire club membership without permission of the author (or one of the authors) and with no request for it from said membership?


Asked on 6/12/09, 10:03 am

2 Answers from Attorneys

Ken Feldman Feldman Law Group

Re: legalities of email forwarding

Probably not. It would probably be copyright infringement, but damage are hard to tell without more info.

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Answered on 6/12/09, 1:52 pm
Sarah Grosse Sarah Grosse, Esquire

Re: legalities of email forwarding

There are far too many variables here to form any meaningful response.

Are you part of the email correspondence? Or have you 'found' this exchange of emails to and from other parties?

What is the subject of the correspondence? Does it contain a protectable work of authorship, (such as poetry, short story, photographs), or an idea for an invention, or proprietary information?

Does the correspondence contain libelous statements?

What type of "club" is it that you want to share this correspondence with? Are any of the club members parties to the correspondence?

What is your intent in sharing this correspondence with them? If it causes damage, your intent is certainly relevant as it relates to potential damages. And, any further damage done by any of the club members in using the correspondence is arguably a foreseeable consequence of your initially sending the correspondence, thus potentially making you susceptible to additional damages.

There are so many potential issues: invasion of privacy, computer hacking, infringement of intellectual property and/or rights of publicity and/or proprietary rights, libel.. to name the ones that just immediately come to mind.

Unless you have nothing but the purest of motives, and you can be certain the emails will not cause any harm or damage, you are at your own peril.

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Answered on 6/12/09, 4:11 pm


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