[Dragaera] Off-Topic Discussion: Occupy Wall Street

[Frank Mayhar]

On Thu, 2011-12-15 at 11:19 -0800, phoenix at ugcs.caltech.edu wrote:
> On Thu, Dec 15, 2011 at 02:05:29PM -0500, Joshua Kronengold wrote:
> > On 12/15/2011 01:52 PM, Philip Hart wrote:
> > >I find this claim (that the private email was sent out of fear),
> > >implication (that the quoted text was "filth") and general stance ("I
> > >get to decide everyone's privacy policy") disappointing.
> > 
> > Your problem.  The custom to keep private email private is a matter
> > of trust, not privacy or copyright.  It is almost always appropriate

If you meant "it is almost always inappropriate" you would be correct.

> > to publish letters sent to you, but it's usually rude.
> 
> Everything I can find online points to you being totally wrong here.
> Legally, the copyright of a letter belongs to the author; the recipient
> owns the copy, but not the right to publish it.  Typically the damages
> one could sue for for illegal publication would be "not much", but the
> law is still with the author.  And end to end, e-mails aren't different
> than letters, not that the law has had a clear opinion about caching and
> other technical details of electronic communication.
> 
> So technically, unilaterally copying someone's private e-mail to you is
> illegal as well as rude.

Well, I found it pathetic, in the "Waah, you were mean to me in email!"
sense.  As I said, disappointing but not surprising.

For the record, I'm by no means afraid of insulting someone in public
when I feel said someone deserves it.  I was just trying to keep the
noise level here down, an attempt thwarted by Matt's childish temper
tantrum.

And that's all I have to say about that.
-- 
Frank Mayhar
frank at exit.com