Fighting Spam - Using the DMCA for Good?

Tesseract asks: "Since I run my own mail server, and have several processes in place to stop spam from hitting my mailbox, could it not be construed as a violation of the DMCA for spammers to 'bypass' my anti-spam protections? On a similar note, wouldn't retention of my copyrighted information (email address) be a violation of copyright law? It would seem that [parts of section 1201 might cover such situations]. How about this reference, as well? Isn't there some way to turn this legal nightmare back on itself kung-fu style?"

Comments

DMCA doesn't apply here.

[Zack]

The DMCA forbids circumventing encryption to get to copyrighted material. I fail to see how you can construe sending mail as that.

Secondly, your email address is a fact, and can not be copyrighted. No less than your street address.

Re:DMCA doesn't apply here.

[ceejayoz]

Hell, how'd this article get posted? Does the mention of "DMCA" and "spam" in the same article get it automatically accepted?

Sheesh...

Don't grant it the legitimacy

[Pyromage]

The instant you try to use it like this: sure it is valid under the letter of the law, however, it's clearly a wrong and misguided law, and arguably unconstitutional.

You'd probably win in court with this: this would be bad because it sets a precedent that the DMCA is valid, which it is not. Be better than they are and don't fsck over the rest of us.

DCMA is not useful. And remember

[Ayanami Rei]

If it could be useful against spam, the same argument can be turned against you and be made to prevent deep linking, etc.

Your email address is a simple URL, and the email becomes an access_log entry. The spam protection is a referral-link + user-agent check.

Do you see where this is going?