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In terms of legality there are two separate issues, invasion of privacy and copyright. Things like privacy / libel / slander generally don't apply to the deceas

In terms of legality there are two separate issues, invasion of privacy and copyright. Things like privacy / libel / slander generally don't apply to the deceased, so in this case I think we can safely ignore that. With respect to copyright, when you send someone an email you're using an agreed upon protocol (RFC 5322, RFC 5598, etc.) that implicitly grants the recipient a copyright. Now you can say this is a bad argument because no one ever reads those, which is true. But if this weren't true legally, then every time you replied to an email it would be illegal since (in most clients) the full text of the previous email gets copied below the new text. Users also can't really use the platform to violate the copyrights of third parties (e.g. by attaching music or whatever), since the platform is tied to their email account. From an ethical perspective, the reason we specifically excluded whistleblowers as a user story is that you can't build a sustainable business around it, since you can only be a whistleblower once. we've designed it to force uploaders to have skin in the game. E.g. they can't anonymize themselves, and they're forced to link their Gmail accounts. I think that's enough to prevent the vast majority of bad behavior. E.g. you could also copy and paste someone's private email into a HN post, but it's just not done. The only thing we really do is make the process easier by letting people making redactions, anonymize people, send permission requests, etc., but that's not exactly a selling point for people who would be egregiously abusing the site.

mirimir 8y ago
IANAL, and so don't know how libel and slander apply to the deceased. I can imagine how estates might have claims. But ??? And even so, there are all the non-deceased correspondents. I had no clue that email protocols "implicitly grants the recipient a copyright". What are cites for that? Neither https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc5322 https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc5322 nor https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc5598 https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc5598 includes "coptright" except in the "Copyright Notice". But anyway, I get your point about "forc[ing] uploaders to have skin in the game." Maybe that will be enough. Because, as you say, there are many other ways to leak confidential stuff.
- Alex3917 8y ago
  The protocols don’t talk about copyright explicitly, but they talk about replying and forwarding. Both of those behaviors are only legal if there is an implicit grant of copyright to the recipient.
  - mirimir 8y ago
    Again, IANAL. But copying in replies seems readily distinguishable from forwarding and publication. But anyway, sorry about taking this down the legality path. It is a cool service that you're providing. And I would never argue that you're legally responsible for what users do. I'm just concerned about the abuse potential. Maybe you could enable publication without explicit authorization only when all correspondents were registered users. That would encourage users to get their contacts to register, increasing your userbase.
  - yellowapple 8y ago
    IANAL, but... Replying is always legal (copyright-wise, at least, notwithstanding other laws that might prohibit it for some other reason, e.g. CANSPAM), so long as your reply does not include my original message or a portion thereof (aside from parts that I didn't really author in a meaningful way, e.g. email headers). Replying with quotes, forwarding, or sending a paraphrased/summarized equivalent to my email may or may not be automatically legal depending on your jurisdiction's laws around fair use. Unless you know that it falls under fair use, it's almost certainly safer to treat it as illegal without prior authorization.
  - Spivak 8y ago
    That line of logic doesn't work. A protocol is neither legal not illegal. It would be like saying that Swedish is illegal. The law largely doesn't care how you do something. It's also not a necessary condition because an internal company mail server wouldn't run into copyright issues since the company owns the copyright on all their employees' work. "Uploading a copyrighted work that I downloaded via GET with POST must be legal otherwise HTTP would be illegal."
    - 8y ago
Spivak 8y ago
Careful stating this so matter-of-factly. The law doesn't care about implementation details and implied copyright grants are tough to argue for. If I allow you to download a copyrighted work from my site it doesn't give you an implicit right to upload it to other people just because your browser has that feature. Check out section A of http://nulawreview.org/extralegalrecent/do-not-forward-why-passing-along-an-email-may-constitute-copyright-infringement http://nulawreview.org/extralegalrecent/do-not-forward-why-p....
Dylan16807 8y ago
Sending an email gives an implicit copyright license, but that license is related to how emails are normally understood to be used. It's not a total license to do anything with.

mirimir 8y ago

IANAL, and so don't know how libel and slander apply to the deceased. I can imagine how estates might have claims. But ??? And even so, there are all the non-deceased correspondents. I had no clue that email protocols "implicitly grants the recipient a copyright". What are cites for that? Neither https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc5322 https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc5322 nor https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc5598 https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc5598 includes "coptright" except in the "Copyright Notice". But anyway, I get your point about "forc[ing] uploaders to have skin in the game." Maybe that will be enough. Because, as you say, there are many other ways to leak confidential stuff.

Alex3917 8y ago
The protocols don’t talk about copyright explicitly, but they talk about replying and forwarding. Both of those behaviors are only legal if there is an implicit grant of copyright to the recipient.
- mirimir 8y ago
  Again, IANAL. But copying in replies seems readily distinguishable from forwarding and publication. But anyway, sorry about taking this down the legality path. It is a cool service that you're providing. And I would never argue that you're legally responsible for what users do. I'm just concerned about the abuse potential. Maybe you could enable publication without explicit authorization only when all correspondents were registered users. That would encourage users to get their contacts to register, increasing your userbase.
- yellowapple 8y ago
  IANAL, but... Replying is always legal (copyright-wise, at least, notwithstanding other laws that might prohibit it for some other reason, e.g. CANSPAM), so long as your reply does not include my original message or a portion thereof (aside from parts that I didn't really author in a meaningful way, e.g. email headers). Replying with quotes, forwarding, or sending a paraphrased/summarized equivalent to my email may or may not be automatically legal depending on your jurisdiction's laws around fair use. Unless you know that it falls under fair use, it's almost certainly safer to treat it as illegal without prior authorization.
- Spivak 8y ago
  That line of logic doesn't work. A protocol is neither legal not illegal. It would be like saying that Swedish is illegal. The law largely doesn't care how you do something. It's also not a necessary condition because an internal company mail server wouldn't run into copyright issues since the company owns the copyright on all their employees' work. "Uploading a copyrighted work that I downloaded via GET with POST must be legal otherwise HTTP would be illegal."
  - 8y ago

Spivak 8y ago

Careful stating this so matter-of-factly. The law doesn't care about implementation details and implied copyright grants are tough to argue for. If I allow you to download a copyrighted work from my site it doesn't give you an implicit right to upload it to other people just because your browser has that feature. Check out section A of http://nulawreview.org/extralegalrecent/do-not-forward-why-passing-along-an-email-may-constitute-copyright-infringement http://nulawreview.org/extralegalrecent/do-not-forward-why-p....

Dylan16807 8y ago

Sending an email gives an implicit copyright license, but that license is related to how emails are normally understood to be used. It's not a total license to do anything with.