Who Owns the Intellectual Property of Emails?

In this digital age, it’s a burning question - who owns the right of the content of an email?

First of all, we have to distinguish between owning the email (substantial right) and having an IP right (immaterial right).

This is not just legalese babble - to illustrate: a printed photo on a canvas will let the person own the canvas with image, but not the IP rights to that image.

To enjoy the benefits of copyright protection, a work needs to meet several conditions.

1. The work result from a creative activity
2. The work must be expressed in a physical form
3. The work must be original
When it comes to emails, the first and the third requirements are hard to meet. Just to illustrate, an email that states that a head of state is a #@!$%&! is hardly the fruit of creativity. Moreover, the content is quite likely not even original but harvested from social media. 

When we look at ownership, we are also in a gray area. Your email is on your computer, so you (and your heirs in case you keel over) own it. However, your rights are limited by those of third parties, namely those of the sender of the email and/or its employees (especially if it concerns a public company).

Furthermore, emails in general do not fall in the category of “confidential information”. However, depending on specific content, they could be considered to be confidential. This is normally the case for emails that contain information that could harm the company if made public.

 Last but not least: let’s discuss privacy. Does making the email public harm anyone’s privacy? If an email reveals private information, it’s an infringement. If the information is already in the public domain, not so much.

Please note that we are dealing with a grey area here. If you are a company and you are not sure, consult a lawyer. It’s worthwhile!

Disclaimer: This blog post was written for general information purposes only, and is not aimed at giving any legal advice in any way, shape or form.

©2015 Tip Top Lawyer

Google’s French Faux Pas

Google got on the wrong side of the French authorities. The Commissions Nationale de l’Informatique et des Libertés (CNIL) investigated Google’s privacy policy change from 2012. About two years ago, Google bundled all its services (Google+, Gmail, Blogger, YouTube etc.) into one. This also changed the privacy policies of the separate accounts that users managed separately.

The CNIL came to the conclusion that Google’s new privacy policy didn't give users enough control over their private information. Furthermore, the agency also found that Google did not explain properly what it would do with the user data.

The ruling of the CNIL is quite interesting. Google was forced to pay a fine of €150,000 which is peanuts for the multinational. That’s why the CNIL added some interesting conditions to its ruling.

Google was forced to post a notice about its misconduct on its homepage. Once accessing google.fr, the following message (translated into English, for the original text go to google.fr) features under the search field:

“Statement: The sanctions committee of the Commision Nationale de l’Informatique et des Libertés has ordered Google to pay a €150,000 fine for violations of the ‘Data-Processing and Freedoms’ law. Decision available at the following address: http:www.cnil.fr/linstitution/missions/sanctionner/Google/”.

Not underestimating the cleverness of Google, the CNIL also dictated the text of the notice. To avoid the age-old legal trick to use a small font and bury the text as much as possible in order to deter readers, the CNIL also dictated the size of the font and the colors to be used as well as the position of the notification on the Google.fr homepage.

Google was not happy to say the least. It promptly turned to a French court to petition suspension of the ruling. It argued that posting the CNIL’s notification would do "irreparable damage" to its reputation. The French court was not convinced and rejected the petition, ordering Google to comply with the order.

It’s not the first time Google ran into trouble in Europe; it recently came to an agreement with the European Commission to pay a $5 billion fine following a three-year-long antitrust investigation.

France is the first European country to order Google to post such a notice. It will be interesting to see if more European countries will follow suit.