Quote: http://www.eff.org/legal/?f=ecpa_laymans_view.article.txt
What about electronic mail, or "e-mail?" E-Mail has been the single biggest area of misinformation about the new law. First, section 2701 does make it a federal offense to read someone else's electronic mail. That would be exceeding your authorization, since "private" e-mail systems do not intend for anyone other than the sender or receiver to see that mail. End Quote To me, this means: If a email list is archived by the owner but only subscribers have access (or if the owner does not archive it), then it is a federal offense for anyone to make archives available without subscription. ===================================================== After having read the code, it seems to me (not a lawyer) that it is also illegal for the list owner to disseminate posts beyond the subscriber-ship without obtaining 'lawful consent': In federal law, consent seems to be obtainable from any one of the involved parties (author, receiver, ...). However, from what I understand, state law can require that consent can be more encompassing, and require for example, consent from all parties, not just one. At this point, I only know (by chance) about Michigan law, which requires consent of all parties. Quote: http://www.eff.org/Legislation/?f=ecpa.law.txt Sec. 2702. Disclosure of contents (a) Prohibitions. Except as provided in subsection (b)-- (1) a person or entity providing an electronic communication service to the public shall not knowingly divulge to any person or entity the contents of a communication while in electronic storage by that service; and (2) a person or entity providing remote computing service to the public shall not knowingly divulge to any person or entity the contents of any communication which is carried or maintained on that service-- (A) on behalf of, and received by means of electronic transmission from (or created by means of computer processing of communications received by means of electronic transmission from), a subscriber or customer of such service; and (B) solely for the purpose of providing storage or computer processing services to such subscriber or customer, if the provider is not authorized to access the contents of any such communications for purposes of providing any services other than storage or computer processing. (b) Exceptions. A person or entity may divulge the contents of a communication-- (1) to an addressee or intended recipient of such communication or an agent of such addressee or intended recipient; (2) as otherwise authorized in section 2517, 2511(2)(a), or 2703 of this title; (3) with the lawful consent of the originator or an addressee or intended recipient of such communication, or the subscriber in the case of remote computing service; (4) to a person employed or authorized or whose facilities are used to forward such communication to its destination; (5) as may be necessarily incident to the rendition of the service or to the protection of the rights or property of the provider of that service; or (6) to a law enforcement agency, if such contents-- (A) were inadvertently obtained by the service provider; and (B) appear to pertain to the commission of a crime. End Quote ==================================================== Quote: http://www.albion.com/netiquette/book/0963702513p136.html Copyright and posted material The free exchange of information through cyberspace has raised all sorts of questions about who owns that material. Is material that's posted to a discussion group still owned by the original author? What if it's repeatedly quoted in further discussion? What if you write a FAQ and make it publicly available -- do you still own the copyright? The answer to these questions is yes, yes, and yes. If it's your original work and you wrote it down, the copyright is yours. End Quote ========================================================= note the final phrase: "within the discussion group." Quote: http://www.albion.com/netiquette/book/0963702513p137.html When you post to USENET -- or anywhere where quoting and forwarding of messages is common -- you are probably giving an "implied license" to quote and forward. In any case, because quoting and forwarding are customary on public discussion groups, you should expect anything you post there to be quoted and/or forwarded within the discussion group. End Quote -- [email protected] http://www.kernel-panic.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/kplug-list
