Douglas,

Your point is well made.  There are however, a couple of caveats to the statement.

In many countries (Canada, which follows the Berne Convention), the time period is, I believe, 50 years after the end of the year of death of the author execpt in the case of "moral" rights (rights of association, credit) which extend from 50 years after death.

A list proper has its own copyright, being a "compilation" of name, addresses, etc.  (You can actually have copyright in "the compilation" of public domain works.)  If contained in a list charter given to subscribers upon their joining, a list owner can be granted as a condition of subscription an exclusive or non-exclusive assignment on certain of the rights (generally, not the moral rights) to reproduce the work and benefit from it.  Yahoo! Groups takes an express non-exclusive right of distribution on list posts.  I would imagine that most list owners have a non-exclusive right to distribute list posts (at least) once, though I have no idea how that would goven future (additional) access to the archives which is distribution.  Without such right, as a publisher and not a facilitator (moderated lists), you might well otherwise be infringing on copyright.  I don't know that "sending to a list" that is moderated, making the owner a publisher, makes a list owner a mere distribu!
tor
or facilitator.  This is one reason magazines will take submissions from authors and change the title of the work, often editing a few lines.  They are effectively creating copyright in their own new work.

Copyright cannot be transferred, sold, or bargained away, except to the author's estate.  However, assignments of components of the rights can be made which survive death.  Those form a contract and must be honoured by those inheriting the copyright.

As far as list ownership goes, a "list" can be owned as tenants in common or joint tenancy between two or more parties.  Tenants in common specifies distinct interests (20%, 50%, etc.) which can pass to heirs, and joint tenancy causes a deceased party's interest to transfer upon death to the remaining parties.  Both forms of ownership can be combined in a hierachial structure.  To the extent ownership involves an obligation (performance) and thus, a business partnership, it must be kept in mind that the courts rarely will permit a situation where new and unacceptable partners are forced on the surviving partners.  A partnership dissolves upon the removal of any partner by any means, though the spoils (any rights, including copyright in the compilation) accrue to the benefiticarie of their estate in the case of death and the absence of a buy-sell agreement which can be triggered "immediately prior to death".

If your list is set up such that you *can* edit, approve or deny posts, regardless of whether or not you actually do such, you are a publisher (editor-moderator in the ordinary sense of the word) rather than a mere facilitator (such as an ISP) and have certain rights and responsibilities.  A publisher chances third-party liability on permitting a libel to continue; a facilitator does not.

Michael


At 02:54 AM 5/11/01 -0500, Winship wrote:

>On Thu, 10 May 2001, Randy Ryan wrote:
>> That is really one of the reasons for having a co-owners, so that they can
>> step in when needed.
>
>Well, I don't think that was the intent of the person who sent the
>original item.  I think his intent was:  who has legal rights to the email
>of the deceased (the email originated by the deceased)?
>
>It becomes much more complex with email, particularly email sent to a
>list, but it is what I apply for my lists;  the poster of each item
>retains copyright to that portion of his item which is original, granting
>fair use quoting within the list, any use outside the list requires the
>permission of the author (you may not forward without permission).

>
>Douglas