Are emails subject to copyright?
- March 20, 2018 @ 5:19amkoozbane says:
I'm on the email list of a relatively wellp-known public figure. Each week he sends out trivia questions to everyone on his list. I've saved over 250 pages of these questions. If I wanted to try and publish these, is that problematic? Do they belong to him or are they now in the public domain? The emails contain no statement of ownership, copyright, nor any such thing.
- March 21, 2018 @ 7:33amcmyers8 says:
Under US copyright law, original creative works instantly receive copyright protection when they are fixed in a tangible medium of expression. Here the riddles are fixed digitally in email and, as such, likely do have copyright protection. Including a copyright notice on the works or within the email in order to secure copyright protection is no longer required by law.
When looking to reuse copyrighted works you can consider exemptions found in US copyright law (e.g. fair use), however publishing these works on the scale you described here will likely fall outside the scope of many of these exemptions. You may wish to consider obtaining permission or a license to republish the riddles, though keep in mind that the public figure may not be the rightsholder if others (e.g. staff, freelance writers) write any of the riddles on his or her behalf. You can find more information about asking for permission and licensing on the Columbia Copyright Advisory Services website.
This article may be of interest to you: Copyright in Comedy, by Maria Scheid. It explores the copyright in jokes, which are different from riddles, but much of the information she shares will still be relevant to your situation.
- March 22, 2018 @ 9:49ambillie_peterson says:
You may want to take a look at this brochure from the US Copyright Office (https://www.copyright.gov/circs/circ01.pdf). To be protected by copyright, a work needs to be original, have a modicum of creativity, and be 'fixed'. "Copyright protection in the United States exists automatically from the moment the original work of authorship is fixed." Consequently, a copyright symbol or a statement of copyright are not required in order for a work to be protected by copyright. One could make the argument that e-mail messages are protected by copyright.
However, facts are not protected by copyright. The question is -- are trivia questions and their answers facts? If so, the facts, themselves, are not protected; although the way in which the facts are expressed (for example, organized and published in a book) would be protected. Does it matter if the fact is well known, common vs. a fact that is less well known, maybe even obscure, as one assumes it would be with a trivia question? Is the question (because it could be asked in different ways) protected, but the answer is not, since it's a fact?
The copyright issue could lie with the issue of whether or not trivia questions and their answers are considered facts and therefore do not qualify for copyright protection.
Additionally, you don't know where this person obtained the trivia questions/answers. Did he take them from one or more publications over a period of time or did he create them himself.
From another member of this formum, these comments:
Under US copyright law, original creative works instantly receive copyright protection when they are fixed in a tangible medium of expression. Here the riddles are fixed digitally in email and, as such, likely do have copyright protection. Including a copyright notice on the works or within the email in order to secure copyright protection is no longer required by law.
When looking to reuse copyrighted works you can consider exemptions found in US copyright law (e.g. fair use), however publishing these works on the scale you described here will likely fall outside the scope of many of these exemptions. You may wish to consider obtaining permission or a license to republish the riddles, though keep in mind that the public figure may not be the rightsholder if others (e.g. staff, freelance writers) write any of the riddles on his or her behalf. You can find more information about asking for permission and licensing on the Columbia Copyright Advisory Services website.
This article may be of interest to you: Copyright in Comedy, by Maria Scheid. It explores the copyright in jokes, which are different from riddles, but much of the information she shares will still be relevant to your situation.
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