While it's nice to think that's actually the case, the legal situation is almost certainly more nuanced. The thing that comes to mind for me is the implicit co

While it's nice to think that's actually the case, the legal situation is almost certainly more nuanced. The thing that comes to mind for me is the implicit copyright protection. I'm not sure if that would apply to a message I sent to you, but it may, and if that's the case, it's "my property", not yours. I'd be interested to know if any case law exists on this. Considering how often the DMCA is abused, I wouldn't be surprised if someone tried a DMCA takedown claiming copyright ownership on an embarrassing e-mail sent to someone and then subsequently posted online.