Physical ownership should be distinguished from copyright ownership.  If I
write a letter to you, then copyright remains mine, but physical ownership
is yours - so, for example, I cannot insist that you return the letter to
me, but I can insist that you don't  make multiple copies of it.  So the
author does not "retain ownership".

s50 does not mean copyright is suspended, rather there is no infringement if
a copy is made under the requirements of another enactment.  Copyright in
the document remains with the copyright owner.

A letter sent from one individual to another does not necessarily come
within the terms of the Data Protection Act - to so so, it must come under
the definition of "personal data", e.g., it must be organised in such a way
that the contents can be easily retrieved.

I'm no expert on confidential information, but I suspect in order for the
contents of a letter  to be deemed confidential, it must be marked
"confidential" or similar.  I do know that  a letter that  contains only
trivial or vague information, information that is in the public domain or
information that is obvious cannot be protected as confidential, nor can a
letter where there is no pre-existing relationship between sender and
recipient - so if I send a letter to a stranger revealing in the letter
something that would  under other circumstances be considered confidential,
the stranger has no duty to respect that.

All in all, things are rather messier than they first appear.

Charles

PS If the sculpture is in a permanent public place, such as a park or
outside a building, it does not enjoy copyright and so the photographer is
free to photograph it.  If it is not on permanent public display, then the
photographer has infringed the sculptor's copyright.  The person who
photographs the photograph is almost certainly infringing the copyright of
the photographer  and possibly is infringing the copyright of the sculptor
(if it wasn't on permanent public display originally).


Professor Charles Oppenheim
Department of Information Science
Loughborough University
Loughborough
Leics LE11 3TU

Tel 01509-223065
Fax 01509-223053
e mail [log in to unmask]
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Graeme Hawley" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Friday, February 11, 2005 2:56 PM
Subject: Ownership of letters


Hello again, and thanks for all of the helpful replies.  My understanding
of this is now as follows:

· My public authority holds letters, some being copies of letters
sent to a well known public figure, some being letters received from that
public figure.
· The author of a letter retains their ownership and copyright of the
content.
· The recipient of the letter owns the document, in the same way that
a person who buys a book owns the book, but not the copyright.
· Section 50 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act allows for
copyright to be suspended to allow the release of information under the
terms of another Act of Parliament.
· Notwithstanding the above, there is a clear Data Protection element
involved in this request, and it is my understanding that a letter sent by
a private individual to another private individual contains an implicit
understanding of confidentiality.
· Therefore, releasing the private correspondence of another person
may breech the terms of the Data Protection Act.

I have contacted the author of the original correspondence to see if they
have any objection to the disclosure of the exchanges (content is pretty
anodyne).

If the person refuses to allow their correspondence to be disclosed:
a) Am I allowed to release the letters that my public authority was the
author of, or would this indirectly violate the other person's DP rights in
the chain of correspondence?
b) Can the applicant request to see the correspndance that took place about
access to the correspondence?

I'm worried that I am going to worry about this all weekend.

Some interesting links regarding the ownership of letters / email:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/magazine/3204121.stm
http://www.duanemorris.com/articles/article1667.html
http://www.strom.com/pubwork/iwwoe94.html

While we're on this subject - a jolly Friday afternoon teaser:

A sculptor creates a work of art.

A photographer takes a picture of the sculpture and displays it in an
exhibition of their photographic artwork.

A visitor to the exhibition takes a photograph of the photograph, and puts
it in his own exhibition.

Who, if anyone, has had their intellectual property rights violated?

Cheers,
Graeme.

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