[ getting afield from 'operational' issues, off-list responses recommended ]
From: Barry Shein <bzs@world.std.com> Date: Sat, 13 Feb 2010 13:43:17 -0500 Subject: Re: dns interceptors [SEC=UNCLASSIFIED]
On February 13, 2010 at 12:12 Valdis.Kletnieks@vt.edu (Valdis.Kletnieks@vt.edu) wrote:
On Sat, 13 Feb 2010 12:02:48 +0800, "Wilkinson, Alex" said:
IMPORTANT: This email remains the property of the Australian Defence Organisation
Have fun trying to enforce that after posting to a public mailing list in North America, with recipients all over the world. Care to cite any relevant legal basis for the claim that would hold outside Australia?
I know I'm an idiot to respond to this BUT part of the implication of copyright ownership is:
Note well that the 'disclaimer' is claiming ownership of the email _ITSELF_, Not just to the intellectual property rights to the contents of the message. This claim _is_ inconsistent with the 'established body of law' in any juris0 diction that holds to the 'doctrine of first sale'. [[.. sneck ..]]
IANAL, but it doesn't strike me as half as preposterous as you say.
What would you think about a notice on a flyer that showed up in your _snail-mail_ mailbox that said "this document remains the property of XYZ Marketing, PLC. -- you must retain it, and return it to us upon demand" ? Absent an _agreement_ (in avance!) between the parties, _any_ such bombast in email (or snail-mail, for that matter) is -- at *best* -- a CYA attempt by the sender against a claim _against_the_sender_ of a lack of due care in handling potentially sensitive material. The presense of such statements in a message -- in the absense of advance agreement to terms -- has absolutely _no_ effect with regard to what the recipient 'may' do with the message, or it's contents. Any claims to the contrary are; (a) attempts to bamboozle the uninformed, (b) mandated by those who do -not- understand the law on the matter, or (c) included for 'self-protection' -- in the off-chance 'hope' that in the event of an actual screw-up on the sender's part, the presense of that claim will mitigate their liabilty. TTBOMK, this premise has -never- been tested in court, so the effacicy of the approch is an open question. OTOH, if 'everybody else' _is_ doing it, one can be accused of 'negligence' for not following the 'best practice' of rest of the sheeple. <wry grin>