Slashdot Mirror
More Australian Insanity: Forwarding Mail Illegal (updated)
lpontiac writes: "People have been making noise about the new Australian copyright laws
making web caching and Playstation mod chips illegal ... and now, the
Australian attorney-general has come out and stated that the new laws
also make it illegal to forward email without the explicit (ie written)
permission of the person who wrote the email. (Just as surprising to me is that the article claims to know who Claire Swire is :)" Update: 03/04 11:22 PM by T :
kipling writes "Regarding the Australian e-mail copyright story, the
ABC news site
says that the Australian Attorney-General has dismissed these claims. Looks like another news ltd beatup." Update: 03/05 02:55 AM by T : And thanks to downunderrob, here is the AG's press release calling the idea "ridiculous."
It's always been impolite, or bad etiquette, to forward emails in full or in part.
I'd be tempted to say that it always has been illegal, due to the fact that the original author has copyright whether or not he/she explicitly says so. Any legal sharps out there conform or deny that?
However, will they make eating peas by shovelling them onto your fork illegal next?
THL
--
Keeping
What the hell is going on down there in Australia? Since when was the attorney general in charge of drafting laws? What kind of a country is it where laws are broad or ambiguous enough that the attorney general could re-interpret them? It sounds to me like that country has a bad case of the government not being answerable to the people. When that happens its time to either reform it or overthrow it.
Before I was born my parents had the opportunity to move to Australia. I'm glad they didn't.
Lee Reynolds
Muslim community leaders warn of backlash from tomorrow morning's terrorist attack.
--
All men are great
before declaring war
A government is a body of people notably ungoverned - AC
More importantly: Is it illegal for you to forward my own email back to me when you have a complaint about it?
--
Free Software: Like love, it grows best when given away.
-- open source? sounds like the real book --
You think Australia doesn't already know what goes on in electronic communications?
Where did the first admission of the existence of Echelon come from? (Australia!)
They're in on it, along with the Kiwis, Brits, Canuks, and of course, the land of the free, the home of the brave, and the most evil of all privacy invading countries, the USA.
Just assume that all your electronic communications are public and you'll be fine.
Saving the children! Er.
--
All men are great
before declaring war
A government is a body of people notably ungoverned - AC
Coca Cola® is not a copyright -- it's a trademark. There's a huge difference. They can't prevent you from using their name except if you try to use that name on another product. Trademark exists to prevent people from creating new products with name clashes with yours, and is generally thought to be a good thing, since it prevents customer confusion. Of course, there's abuse of this form of intelectual property (especially by WIPO's domain name dispute policy).
I used up all my sick days, so I'm calling in dead.
Finally, bad spellers and the grammatically incorrect are protected by law. No longer need they fear being mocked and ridiculed forever in a never-ending flood of forwarded e-mails they have destroyed so eloquently. I applaud Australia for taking a stand for the dignity of the CmdrTacos of the world.
Better than that, you can report the bastards that send you the forwards and have them arrested!
Nope, just a bunch of clueless, out-of-touch politicians that will probably be voted out of office at this year's federal election....
--
The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing. - Edmund Burke
The one thing that I keep going back to, the one thing that continually puzzles me about all of this is that - given Australia is a Democracy with elected officials - how people can stand for this, how this never seems to be an issue that the general populace takes to heart, and how an ostensibly large number of people support such laws. When an item like this is presented in Slashdot, be it foolish patents, draconian copyright protections, or outrageous MS practices, it is presented as though the subject is stupefyingly logic-defying. The tone of these topics are always "well, DUH!", and yet ordinary people really don't get it.
:)
I mean 'don't get it' in the literal sense, I assume. They are actually uninformed as to the essence of the laws that get passed. It was like the time I learned that if I get stopped without proof of vehicle insurance in California, there is a $1000 fine, even if you have proof but are a little disorganized and left it at home.
The unmitigated arrogance of a government beholden to greedy corporations! In this case, a corrupt official, a 'wolf watching the hen-house' allowed the laws to be passed. Chuck Quackenbush, the wolf, has since been railroaded out of office, but did the law revert back to what it was? In no sense of the word.
Essentially, the problem boils down to Campaign Finance Reform. We have been talking about that for ten years now, but Congressmen maintain that there are Freedom of Speech issues that would be violated. How arrogant of them!
I'm sorry, we were talking about Australia, weren't we?
Well, it seems that politicians are even more brazen in that country. They therefore hold the light to the map to show us where we are headed if we cannot find some way for the People to keep their government in check. And they are not that far ahead of any other of the governments, they are just a little more brazen.
It took a few hundred years, but they have finally 'loopholed' and 'lawyerized' the Constitution into irrelevance. God help us all.
SDMI: Finally! Music that won't rip or burn! Brought to you by the fine folks at RIAA.
nice theory, except that
-- open source? sounds like the real book --
This is unbelieveably sad and completely backward. I could possibly see an argument for being able to copyright an email message -- for a subscription-based newsletter for instance -- but come on people, optimize for the friggin' common case! If the sender doesn't want you to forward the message they should have to say so explicitly.
Complaining about spam requires forwarding the entire message with complete headers. I haven't had a chance to read the bill yet - it was introduced and went through the committees in 1999 - but it looks like this bill may make spam complaints illegal.
What I'd like to know is, what were EFA doing at the time? The bill was titled "Copyright Ammendment (Digital Agenda) Bill 1999", yet EFA is not listed in the submissions to the committee inquiry. A bill like that screams out as being right down EFA's alley, and this interaction, which seems obscure to most people, would be blindingly obvious to EFA. It looks like they seriously dropped the ball as far as keeping in touch with what the Parliament was doing here.
And in related news, showing (paper) birthday cards to your friends and family after you recieve them is ruled an offense, as well as telling anyone about an email you recieved, or reading your email in a public place, or... or....
But in this case what the Telegraph is describing is precisely the application of traditional law. It is giving email the exact same treatment that paper mail gets under current copyright law, and has gotten for a very long time without kicking up any particular controversy.
You write something, you own the copyright. Others may copy only by fair use or if you give them permission. That's how it is with paper.
Apparently the aussie government is os the opinion that the web will only be safe and secure for copyrighted works when it is completely useless.
Australia starts acting like China and reading their citizen's emails, checking for 'inappropriate material'?
Australia starts packet sniffing?
Australia requires all traffic to go through a central server farm, so they can control everything going in and coming out?
Australia filters web sites?
Scary stuff. I'm a developer who was considering moving to Australia soon. This is enough to make sure that I don't move there until they stop passing Draconian laws.
from the feature creep department...
>All we have to do is change the name on the button
>from "Foward" to "Quote"
>and then nobody is breaking any laws.
Does the Australian government know they're quickly making their country into a laughingstock?
Given how future prosperity will depend on technology to an increasing extent, why are they trying to ensure the emigration of all their geeks?
Can any Australians here offer insight on the political climate that has created this shortsightedness? Why are they doing this?
I think a lot of us has read some of the little half-funny half-scary short stories, mostly speculative bits about what the future could be like. We probably all remember the guy that let his poor girlfriend sneak a peak at his textbooks, even though it was likely to cost him jail time (but didn't). We recently got to read speculation here on the future as affected by the Napster decision.
I have to say -- this whole situation reads like that. If back in 1998, someone wrote one of these, and said, "...and so people were jailed for forwarding jokes without permission...", it would have seemed funny. Now, it is a mournful day in a world where legislators make laws seemingly without regard to the lives of the people they serve.
and I hope he throws someone in jail for 6 years for the heinous crime of forwarding an email. Then maybe we'll get stupid laws like this one thrown out.
Come on. No substantial copyright exists in any work of less than 200 words, because that's the limit for an excerpt under fair use.
A colleague forwarded to me yesterday an email from his wife in which she derided overclockers in general and her husband in particular. Now not only is he in trouble for shagging their PC, he's violated her copyright, too.
--
--
E_NOSIG
There is a simple way to get around this rule. That is, one only has to attach a notice in your sig, allowing anyone to forward your message. For example:
-----------
Joe H. Schmoe
joe@schmoe.com
*I hereby give you written permission to forward this message*
Something as simple as that would work, even though I'm not so sure how well it would hold up in court.
When you send mail to a mailing list, it's like you're speaking in a public forum...totally different scenario than email to a single person.
"That's Tron. He fights for the Users."
This could put some SERIOUS teeth into the GPL in Australia. (it just gets really hard to discuss it.)
--
Free Software: Like love, it grows best when given away.
Actually, attorney-general Daryl Williams has dismissed reports that sharing e-mails has been banned by law. According to an ABC news report, he says for distribution of a personal e-mail to be classed as a breach of the new law, a court would have to find the contents were an original literary work.
He says it would be difficult for most e-mails to be regarded as original enough to have a copyright placed on them.
So now we have two criteria to check our email against. Originality and literary quality. What I want to know is how does the following compare:
-- Dear Bill,
-- Hows the family? We're OK. The job's giving
-- me the sh**ts. My boss is a complete pr*ck.
-- Can't wait to stick it up him. Anyway patience
-- is a virtue. See you at Dave's on the weekend.
-- Cheers,
-- Mike.
Considering its originality, I'm sure there are a zillion other emails with similar wording. Some of the persons and facts might be different (your boss may be an a**hole). Regarding literary quality? Well, Shakespeare it ain't. Does this mean its non-copyrightable?
This is absolutely hilarious. If I receive a snail-mail letter, I am free to do whatever I wish with it. The author cannot use copyright to prevent me from putting that letter in my neighbor's mailbox, throwing it out, or using it as toilet paper. The problem is that legislators are exploiting the fact that there is no tangible manifestation of an e-mail to create rediculous laws that are far more restrictive than anything that governs the use of physical property, like a letter.
Lenny
ByteMyCode.com: A Web 2.0 code sharing community.
Guy sitting at computer... In the background you hear "You've Got Mail!"... close up of computer screen, at least 150 messages in his Inbox. He hits the forward button, selects all 50 people in his address book, and hits the send button. Immediately, a kangaroo with boxing gloves appears and knocks the living daylights out of the guy.
Word appears at bottom: "SPAM"
Foster's beer bottle shown: "BEEEAAAH!"
"Foster's. Austrailian for BEEEAAAH!"
--
Trolling using another account since 2005.
I was just curious...why did they outlaw email forwarding but not gossip and rumors? Isn't someone going around telling other people a joke i told them just as bad as forwarding it on email?
I know what I will do, I won't tell anyone any more jokes so they can't possibly tell them to anyone else! Or worse yet, so they can't forward them to anyone else.
The anti-salmon
They would be just as well off to shut off all internet access in Australia. That way, no one would be tempted to break any of these foolish laws.
Wansu, th' chinese sailor
Could it be that emails will be sifted to search for copyright hotwords like Coca Cola? Anyone using Coca Cola will automatically have a royalty charge applied to their account?
:)
Here's a funny scenario. Say there is an e-mail scam going on. Someone is sending e-mails that promise a good thing, and after reading it, you fear that some foolish people are going to fall for it and lose their life savings. So you send out a warning email, using the body of the text to help people recognize it, as well as demonstrate the hows and whys of it being a scam.
Theoretically YOU could be fined for doing a public service.
On a lighter note... what if I emailed something, lost the original, and wanted to send it off to some other people. I go to a friend and ask them to bring it up in their account, and then I email it off to other people... do I have to get written signed permission from myself?
Fuzzy Knights: New RPG Strips Tuesday and Friday!:
http://www.fuzzyknights.com
Actually, how do you think the Reformation (which as we know, changed history)started? It took years for a Bible to be written, while a printing press dramatically cut down print time...so Bibles, tracts could be written much quicker, (but still slow compared to our times) As for the insane laws, there are ways to circumvent them enough and we can tie them up in courts for years... This is why we should have elected Gore the Bore, Georgy Jr will just allow the coporations and the government take over the Net which was meant for us all to be used.
Slashdot Hypocrisy at work?
As an IT professional that had once considered moving to Australia, I can assure you that with this kind of mad hatter legislation will prevent me from ever moving there. I hope the Australian gov't enjoys living in the Infomation Dark Ages. I can't believe they would put their citizens in PRISON for forwarding an email. I thought this was a joke, but I guess this is just another example of the paranoid behaviour of a gov't afraid of FREE SPEECH. U.S.A. and DMCA beware. Limiting free speech is wrong.
Simply forward the offending attachment to abuse@isp, and the prosecutor's office will be contacting you shortly about *your* case.
The illegality stems from breaching the copyright held by the person who originally wrote the e-mail.
So does this pertain to someone who has included a copyright clause in their email or will the Australian government just conclude on their own the thoughts of the people whose email is in question.
"It's quite possible that the forwarding of an e-mail could be a technical infringement of copyright," Mr Williams' legal adviser told The Sunday Telegraph.
Again, this seems to be a broad law created possibly in hopes of deterring people from forwarding an email and delves into perhaps placing a link on a website. The people of Australia should do something against their politicias who seem to want to take away their right to free speech. Suppose your a reporter and have some very good information regarding an article, will you get sued or thrown in jail for quoting something, or linking to a site to prove a point, or make a statement?
The new measures cover material which already has copyright protection -- such as excerpts from books or song lyrics -- as well as personal messages.
I guess I can no longer email my friends down under with any links or quotes to something I've seen or read, or heard, since they can face time for looking at it should they innocently reply back with the copy of the message I originally sent them.
This means a simple message about office gossip, holiday plans or a new romance carries personal copyright and the recipient has no right to forward it without permission.
Bill Clinton would have liked this law
Internet Industry Association executive director Peter Coroneos said forwarding e-mail had probably always involved a technical breach of copyright, adding: "It's a matter of whether the authors themselves are likely to be concerned.
He urged people sending e-mail to spell out whether they gave permission for the content to be forwarded to others. Well, someone shed some light on this, it is of a concern of the author not government in this matter, however a law is a law is a law.
(c) 2001 ANY DIRECT QUOTES, LINKS, ASSUMPTIONS, THOUGHTS, FANTASIES, MISCONTRUCTION OF THIS POST IS PUNISHABLE BY UP TO FIVE YEARS IN JAIL DOWN UNDER
down under
By saying that the non digital part of the world is "the real world", you're implying that the digital part of the world is not real. That expresses the view that digital and more traditional medias are completely different. Which is the view you say you want to fight!
Free your mind!
Hello.
hundreds and hundreds of people have already read this piece of email, and now YOU are the lucky one. Send this mail to 5 friends, and you'll have luck for a year! But if you break the chain...you could have bad luck for years and years. Just look at what happened to John. He failed to send this note to 5 friends. the next day he was eaten by a gang of ravenous rabid weasels! or what happened to Mary: she DID send this mail to 5 friends. 3 days later she won a million in the lottery. 367 days later though, we sued her for copyright infringement...
//rdj
No one can understand the truth until he drinks of coffee's frothy goodness.
--Sheikh Abd-Al-Kadir, 1587
The problem is that the Dem's are essentially the same as the Repub's. They have slightly different hang ups, but they both basically want to control everything and everyone. And after this last election I'm not too pleased with the official Green party either.
If they weren't so pro-corporation I'd probably be Libertarian, but as it is I'm just libertarian. And this despite knowing how powerless it renders me. I just can't feel that supporting any of those (you fill in)'s is better than nothing.
If I were to start a party I'd call it the minimalist party, and the basic platform would be that any law must be correctly understandable by at least 60% of a large sample of 8th grade kids. I also want to limit the total number of laws, to, say, 5000.
And how about this: There can be no more bits of information in the laws of the country than there are in the human genome. Is that too many or too few? And don't forget those 8th graders! They have to understand each piece of it.
Caution: Now approaching the (technological) singularity.
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
I don't need to copy/forward an email to complain about spam. And i *can* copy the headers, since they are not copyrighted by the author. I think copying the Subject falls under fair use. Also i can forward the message to the author himself. So i think there's still some options left to complain about spam.
"By the way if anyone here is in advertising or marketing... kill yourself." -- Bill Hicks
Since some of these Beasties are intended for sending copies of your mail elsewhere (when you forward something that's explicitly allowed to forward and add some comments) the law should come down pretty hard on those.
"By the way if anyone here is in advertising or marketing... kill yourself." -- Bill Hicks
I won a legal case where I was not paid for completed work, where I had included a copyright TO THE COMPANY (not me) on the basis that since thay had not paid my fees, the copyright was in question and I was requesting a that they cease and desist form marketing it and that their customers cease and desist from using it until the copyright issue was resolved. Fastest I ever got paid... CEO met me at my bank with a cash cheque and got *immediate* clearance on the cheque.
Zero Sum (don't amount to much). [root@localhost]
Look at
http://whoisclaireswire.terrashare.com/> this link
There are times when you'd rather not have your email forwarded. That's what copyright is all about and in most cases it should deter others from re-distributing private correspondence.
whatiscopyright
is a good overview too.So who want to inform the australian government...
That is the real problem. There was a time, not so long ago (er, ca 1992 or 3) when information was rapidly being freed and it could not be stopped so it roamed the world unfettered and unencumbered. Of course, that was when only the technologically savvy could access this information and the great unwashed masses couldn't. So there wasn't a problem because it was obscure to those in power: they didn't get it.
.NET - to act as broker between each digital transaction).
Now, ten years later, when they Do understand the intrinsic power of information, they feel they must control the flow and broker each and every transaction between all people on the net (that is, in fact, MS's plan -
This is an informational war between the people of the world and basically corporations of the world (governments playing puppet to the corporate whim). The instrument of control is the Law. The legislators and lawyers are going to find it extremely difficult to control informational flow, but we are seeing - real time! every day something new! - the fruits of their labors: horrible and unenforcable laws that basically make each and every citizen a criminal. Once everyone is a criminal, then all of their liberties are endangered, and they must skulk around, fearful of being caught.
The only difference that I can see between Winston Smith's sad little grey world and this one is that people don't seem to have the zeal to rat out their neighbors, no one is wearing a red sash. Wait, correct that, I forgot about the model for the (forget what Orwell called them) guys who turn in their neighbors: the Religious Right and Christian Conservatives here in America. Already drug laws have turned half a nation into criminals.
Now another large chunk will be criminalized - sorry, has been criminalized. Napster-users, anyone who ever burned a disk containing MS Office and gave it to a friend. Basically, an entire nation of criminals, at risk and fearful of exposure. This serves the regime well.
The reason there will not be reform is that legislators are no longer servants of the people, if they ever were. No, the people are not vested in their country. Not in England where by some strange brainwashing technique (a la 1984) they Act like the Parliament is their friend, not in America where we know the story but admit powerlessness and the inability to organize except to continue to oppress Ourselves (MADD, African_American Rights Moevments, et al), and apparently not in Australia, which probably follows a British model.
The only power a people are left with is the power to revolt. And at least in America, those in power are preparing for that eventuality, when they get to crush (a la the WTO riot in Seattle) the small Goldstein (Stallman?) rebellion once and for all. The maser would be a really good weapon for that, wouldn't it? SWAT teams with masers and stun guns and tear gas... oh my!
But, my God! So many criminals, criminalized by such an oppressive regime!
Believe me, you don't want to see a Bastille Day, where the streets ran red with the blood of the aristocracy. And so ordinary people who have not girded their loins and prepared for the moment will lose their nerve at the critical hour.
But those who have been planning this moment know what to do. They are seizing the day right now, and will continue to do it forever. Recall that 1984 wasn't about crushing a rebellion forever. It was about warring with people day after day.
er, sorry so long, but that's how I feel.
SDMI: Finally! Music that won't rip or burn! Brought to you by the fine folks at RIAA.
I can't forward around that chain mail that my 12-18 year old brothers, sisters, and compatriots keep sending me. That sucks.
- I don't care if they globalize against free speech. All my best free thoughts are done in my head.
But then again, who will be only too happy to enforce all of this? Constable Microsoft, that's who.
I swear, if I ever get a chance, I'll have the DeCSS source code engraved on a metal breastplate and shield and become the anti-MPAA knight.
"Ancillary does not mean you get to rule the world." --U.S. Circuit Judge Harry Edwards, speaking to the FCC's lawyer
2. Why does this law exist especially for e-mail and not for generic mail, both e- and snail-? I'm sick and tired of legislation that assumes as soon as you do something on the internet that it needs more strict rules than it did in it's older low-tech form. Why discriminate against e-mail? If this rule doesn't exist for paper mail, it shouldn't exist for e-mail. Conversely, if it exists for paper mail already, then it should already be illegal for e-mail without needed new legislation.
Don't label something "offtopic" unless you know the topic well enough to tell what's on topic.
Here's the link at the ninemsn web site:s p)
New law won't punish forwarding e-mails (http://news.ninemsn.com.au/sci_tech/story_9424.a
--
The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing. - Edmund Burke
Do we really think that the Austrailian government is out to protects my copyright when I forward gossip to my sister? Or do we think they are trying to cut down on chain letters and spam?
Why must the courts and legislatures of our world continue to think of computers as things foreign to traditional law? Why must they continue to make computer laws and decisions that would be considered unreasonable when applied to the real world? Computers are just another tool. With the printing press, there wasn't as much legal change. The monarchies and aristocracies of Europe feared it, but they could always have their troops smash a printing press. Computers and internets make the oligarchies and plutocracies of today shudder, though, because they can't do that. They have little control. They want control so they continue to pass insane laws.
They will not succeed.
Pax Digitalia
Sending anything that one claims as "copyrighted" to people one doesn't know and not providing a valid return address would be sufficient grounds to argue that copyright does not apply. The recipient is denied an opportunity to return the e-mail to the sender.
If a spammer decided to try the copyright defense, it can easily be demonstrated under Australian law that they accessed someone else's computer without authorisation, which is an offence under the Crimes Act.
--
The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing. - Edmund Burke
The ruling says that it's illegal to forward email because you're reproducing it without the author's express written permission.
What about SMTP relay? Each SMTP server along the way reproduces a copy of your email. Since you don't always know which SMTP servers it's going through, how can you give them express permission? You can't. Thus, email is illegal in Australia.
The obvious answer to this is that, when you send email, permission to copy it is implicitly given.
Here, nations compete head-to-head to impose the most ridiculous pro-censorship/corporate laws on their citizens, without causing a revolt!
And oh! Looks like Australia takes the lead! Yep - the fans are eagerly awaiting the US's response. :)
--
All men are great
before declaring war
A government is a body of people notably ungoverned - AC
Let's not forget that Australia is just a penal colony. Why should prisoners have the same rights as a free man? They were rightly disarmed a few year ago, and now their lines of communication are being cut to make them more isolated and easier to control. Nothing but good management on the Prime Warden's part.
I say that the things a man does to be sent to Botany Bay relieve society of any duty to respect his freedom.
Sure, you may say that a significant percentage of prisoners are merely descendants of criminals, but as anyone who's paid attention to his lessons on eugenics in high-school science class knows that the apple doesn't fall far from the tree. And as for those odd souls who removed themselves to that place voluntarily, it only shows their preference for associating with criminal defectives; the clearest sign of actually being one.
You don't pry into whether our local wardens prefer thumbscrews or the lash, so why bother yourself about how Australians can talk to each other?
---
Please note that under the Berne Convention, an international agreement to which almost all nations (including the United States) are signatory, all written works are under copyright automatically, even when no explicit copyright is mentioned.
--
AC
I'd actually like to take issue with your sig, not your message itself:
We don't need no stinkin' sigs.
Yea, sure, Australia's IP laws are getting loonier every month it seems. But insofar as this law threatens our personal freedom as citizens of the 'net, why not just twiddle your sig a bit as a hack and be done with it:
"The original author hereby disclaims any and all authorship rights to, and releases into the public domain any copy of this message reaching a computer in the Commonwealth of Australia, for the purposes of the Digital Agenda Act and/or any other legislation enacted therein.
// zyqqh
It is -- under their anal (excuse the pun) pornography laws...
--
Free Software: Like love, it grows best when given away.
Now, any 'communication' constitutes an original work for the purposes of copyright protection. Get over it.
I agree, discerning a 'communication' from an 'original, copywritten work' is rather difficult.
Read that again and I think you'll see the problem. Determining whether the author would want something forwarded would ostensibly involve either explicit consent on each email, or some sort of mind reading. The problem here is not the few lawsuits that will spring up, but simply the massive legal exposure for corporations and individuals which has been instantaneously created by this law. It's a case of law not imitating life. I would hate to see the contortions corporations are going to go through regarding their employees' email over the next few months (assuming somebody doesn't wake up and vaporize this thing.)
Now, a good example of law meeting reality would have been to declare some sort of explicit granting of rights whenever you send out an email. Perhaps forwarders could be required to leave the original sender's name in the message body. Any law that miraculously turns a common, accepted activity into a crime is going to cause a lot of trouble.
--
All men are great
before declaring war
A government is a body of people notably ungoverned - AC
I have just added this to my signature for all outgoing business mail:
"Permission is granted under the Copyright Act 1968 (as amended to 4 March 2001) to forward this messages to other recipients within your company. This waiver is required because forwarding email without the owner's written permission is now illegal under the Copyright Act."
This avoids any problems if I accidentally leave off a vital recipient (which happens all the time), alerts other companies to the problem, and acts as a mild protest.
--
The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing. - Edmund Burke
Those people who write emails have worked HARD and they deserve to be compensated for their efforts!
If you forward those emails you are a THIEF and a CRIMINAL, no different than if you went into a Border's and raped the cashier. How would you like if some gave away all your work for free? Communist!
It's about time the government cracked down on those freeloaders. If you think forwarding emails should be free, well let's see you write your own emails and give them away! If every one forwarded emails, no one would write new emails because there'd be no incentive! How would you like that! Commie!
Err, wait a minute, what was the discussion about again?
And what happens to all the viruses?
- The waffle man
You're an arrogant, ignorant fool. You should take a good look in the mirror some time. Do you really think the rest of the world is full of universal admiration for the US? Yes, I have met smart Americans, but I've also come across appalling pig-headed ignorance Have you ever even been to Australia? There are a lot of smart Aussies still in Australia. Sure, Australia, like other small countries, has a problem with brain drain. That has more to do with things like taxes and salaries than anything else. If you read discussions on Australian news sites, you'll find that many Australians disagree with such things as the new net censorship laws. We live in a democracy and we'll have our opportunity to change these things at the next election, if not before.