I had an interesting conversation today on the subject of copyright. It's an interesting subject, and one that not everybody takes seriously. We were debating whether or not the dates need to be updated on a copyright notice so tonight I decided to investigate the subject. I came across a very good article that deals with myth busting from Brad Templeton. Apparently these days a copyright notice is not even necessary and the work is legally copyrighted.
This was true in the past, but today almost all major nations follow the Berne copyright convention. For example, in the USA, almost everything created privately and originally after April 1, 1989 is copyrighted and protected whether it has a notice or not. The default you should assume for other people's works is that they are copyrighted and may not be copied unless you know otherwise. There are some old works that lost protection without notice, but frankly you should not risk it unless you know for sure.
I assume this is true for Australia too (since we tend to follow the US convention for most things!). I'm afraid I've been guilty of copyright violation on more than one occasion. I use alot of stuff that I receive in emails, especially images, and for written content I generally give the writer credit though I've never sought permission to reprint anything. After an email has been forwarded to countless numbers of people already, I don't see the harm in reproducing it again.
To have a copy is not to have the copyright. All the E-mail you write is copyrighted. However, E-mail is not, unless previously agreed, secret. So you can certainly report on what E-mail you are sent, and reveal what it says. You can even quote parts of it to demonstrate. Frankly, somebody who sues over an ordinary message would almost surely get no damages, because the message has no commercial value, but if you want to stay strictly in the law, you should ask first. On the other hand, don't go nuts if somebody posts E-mail you sent them. If it was an ordinary non-secret personal letter of minimal commercial value with no copyright notice (like 99.9% of all E-mail), you probably won't get any damages if you sue them. Note as well that, the law aside, keeping private correspondence private is a courtesy one should usually honour.
While copyright law makes it technically illegal to reproduce almost any new creative work (other than under fair use) without permission, if the work is unregistered and has no real commercial value, it gets very little protection. The author in this case can sue for an injunction against the publication, actual damages from a violation, and possibly court costs. Actual damages means actual money potentially lost by the author due to publication, plus any money gained by the defendant. But if a work has no commercial value, such as a typical email message or conversational posting, the actual damages will be zero. Only the most vindictive (and rich) author would sue when no damages are possible, and the courts don't look kindly on vindictive plaintiffs, unless the defendants are even more vindictive.
If you want copyright permission there's a handy website where you can get just that. Copyright.com is an online service center for copyright licensing solutions. At copyright.com, you can get permission to use content from millions of works, including the leading titles in science, medicine, technology, news, business and more. And publisher, authors and other creators can license the rights to their works. Now we have no excuse. I'm sure there's other sites that provide this service, and contacting the author directly would be a more personal approach. Australian residents should visit the Australian Copyright Council's Online Information Centre website for local information. Copyright Agency Limited (CAL) is an Australian copyright management company whose role is to provide a bridge between creators and users of copyright material. CAL represents authors, journalists, visual artists, surveyors, photographers and newspaper, magazine and book publishers as their non-exclusive agent to license the copying of their works to the general community.
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