My question is when is email considered abandoned in terms of a end users rights to their own emails. If a company recycles a server and there is email on said server do the users who had email on said serve retain rights to those emails?
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6Your attorneys question does not pass the laughing test. No. No. No. Just no. Get attorney who knows what (s)he is talking about.– HennesSep 13, 2013 at 21:42
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81) That sounds like total and complete nonsense 2) We don't do legal advice here. 3) The legal aspects may change for country / state– That Brazilian GuySep 13, 2013 at 21:43
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6The word 'public domain' usually is used related to copyright, which has nothing to do with discovery. With the right type of orders from the judge the government can, will, and does get your emails from your ISP at point in time, in some countries.– ZoredacheSep 13, 2013 at 21:51
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2If emails become public domain after 6 months, then someone needs to let Julian Assange know he needs to quit his day job.– user201262Sep 13, 2013 at 23:08
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3This question is still off topic, sorry. It's something you'd have to ask a lawyer.– slhckSep 15, 2013 at 19:04
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2 Answers
It is NOT public domain that you are thinking of. Public domain refers to copyrighted works that are have their protection expire or explicitly have their copyright opened. Examples are old books or open license software.
What you are thinking of is the US court rulings that said if you have a communication between two parties directly - like sender to recipient - then they are considered confidential and require a warrant from the court to listen in on (unless you're the NSA and don't care about warrants...) If you send the communication through a third party like a email hosting service and you don't encrypt it, you've "published it" to the public and it no longer has such protection.
It is based on the US Mail - if you put the letter in an envelope, no one can see it but the sender and recipient. If you wrote it on the back of a postcard - everyone can see it as it passes from hand to hand. The assumption is that you didn't intend for it to be quite so private so it doesn't have such protection. As a matter of fact, the US Post Office SCANS the front and back of all packages and letters going through it so a letter in an envelope can only show the sender/recipient info whereas a postcard shows ALL the info in the scan.
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Can you provide a link to verify the authenticity of the statement of such a court ruling existing? Sep 13, 2013 at 23:42
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1I think the lawyer is referring to the ECPA: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electronic_Communications_Privacy_Act– spuderSep 14, 2013 at 16:51
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According to US copyright law, any "work of authorship" is implicitly copyrighted (ie, "owned") by the author (absent any notations or contracts to the contrary). And this is true even if you write something and post it on a public bulletin board (be it online or a physical bulletin board at a grocery store). But note that copyright does not equal privacy -- you have the right to prohibit others from copying your work, but you do not (as a result of the copyright) have a right to privacy. And even with the copyright copying is permitted in several circumstances ("fair use"). Sep 15, 2013 at 19:10
When is email software considered to be in the public domain?
When the license of the software says so.
When is the content of email messages hosted on a server considered to be in the public domain?
That is unlikely to happen, but refer to your local laws to be sure.
answered Sep 13, 2013 at 21:52
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In the US the messages pass into the public domain when the copyright expires. Used to be this would be 50 years after the death of the author, but that was changed some years back, and I don't know the current rule. (But of course, "public domain" is largely unrelated to privacy.) Sep 15, 2013 at 19:11