# Legality of Making Private Emails Public

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/legality-of-making-private-emails-public/261428>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [August 25, 2004, 12:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/legality-of-making-private-emails-public/261428 "2004-08-25T12:35:13Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 2

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**Author:** ![Garfield226](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/9e8a1a/32.png) [@Garfield226](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Garfield226)\
**Post date:** [August 25, 2004, 10:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/legality-of-making-private-emails-public/261428/21 "2004-08-25T22:43:31Z")

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> [@Aldebaran](#):
>
> I for one am sure that I never gave away full rights ever and I don’t plan to do it in the future on anything that is important to me, no matter where the (first) publication is done.

I guess you might not consider it “full rights,” but:

> [@](#):
>
> By posting on this board you grant the Chicago Reader, Inc., and its successors and assigns a nonexclusive irrevocable right to re-use your posting in any manner it or they see fit without notice or compensation to you. No material contained in this site may be republished or reposted without express written consent of the Chicago Reader, Inc., except that message board users retain the right to republish or repost their own work.

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**Author:** ![Aldebaran](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/c6cbf5/32.png) [@Aldebaran](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Aldebaran)\
**Post date:** [August 25, 2004, 10:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/legality-of-making-private-emails-public/261428/22 "2004-08-25T22:57:27Z")

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> [@Garfield226](#):
>
> I guess you might not consider it “full rights,” but:

I read what you quote here long before I subscribed.  
It might come as a shock, but what I write on the SDMB does not fall under what I can consider to have any importance to me.

Salaam. A

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**Author:** ![micco](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/5f8ce5/32.png) [@micco](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/micco)\
**Post date:** [August 26, 2004, 4:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/legality-of-making-private-emails-public/261428/23 "2004-08-26T04:16:18Z")

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> [@Aldebaran](#):
>
> I think I am going to do the test and ask now for the coyright on the mail I plan to send to a friend in the USA. I can make it a bit more substantial and make it a letter instead. And to make it really something US Only, I can have it written in the US and sent in the US.  
> Although I can write very lively descriptions of daily trivialities and hence make of my letters real works of literary art, I have some serious doubts about the positive tone of the answer on my copyright application.

Does this mean that you expect your application for a registered copyright to be rejected?

As noted above, IANAL or an expert on copyright, but I don’t believe applications for registered copyrights are reviewed for validity the way patents and trademarks are. When you register a copyright, I believe it is only checked to make sure the samples provided conform to format requirements. It’s unlikely the copyright office will even read your letter. They’ll simply mark it registered, and it is up to the courts to sort out any challenges. I believe there are cases where a single word has been copyrighted (e.g. work of the poet Aram Saroyan IIRC) which sets the bar rather low for your letter.

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