The mere act of forwarding an email or posting an exchange to a website is grounds for legal action, according to University of Arkansas law professor Ned Snow. In a paper to be published in the Kansas Law Review this summer, Snow contends that one of the most common acts of the digital age is a violation of privacy and warns that our courts are running headlong into this issue.
It’s largely assumed that the Copyright Act of 1976, which lays out the terms of fair use, makes it ok for an email recipient to forward a private communication. But Snow contends that the Constitutional right to privacy supercedes federal law. “Let’s say I send you an email to you that says I hate my boss and you send it to my boss. The federal copyright act says if it’s not creating any kind of economic harm to the expression, go ahead and copy it,” Snow says. “Well, the expression is really valueless in this example, but the idea is worth a ton. Under federal law, forwarding email is really fine, but federal law doesn’t protect privacy interests.”
Snow continues, “My argument is, copyright law can’t take the place of a law that’s meant to protect privacy interests. The Federal Copyright Act does not cover expression that’s meant to be kept private.”
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