Is it allowed to forward an online newsletter to your colleagues? That depends on the question whether the publisher of the newsletter has given his consent. The district court of Amsterdam gave a judgment on this topic on 29 November 2011.
Energy Intelligence Group (EIG) offers a whole rage of online newsletters in the field of energy production, including Petroleum Intelligence Weekly (PIW) and Nefte Compass (NC). An employee from (at the time) Fortis had a subscription on both online newsletters and would forward them within the department of Commodities Energy. EIG was not pleased with this course of action. It had not given permission to forward the newsletters. According to EIG, Fortis therefore violated its copyright.
Fortis argued at the district court that the newsletters from EIG had not been made public, because they were forwarded within the department of the bank. The court does not decide on this publication argument in its judgment. Duplicating the newsletter (in this case: making digital copies) is not allowed without permission. That however, is exactly what has happened when the Fortis employee forwarded the digital newsletters. Conclusion: copyright infringement.
Is forwarding a digital newsletter always deemed to be a copyright infringement? No. If the copyright holder permits forwarding the newsletter, obviously there is no problem. For example, our own newsletter contains explicit permission to forward it. Permission can furthermore be given implicitly, for example when it is abundantly clear that the newsletter is intended to be distributed to a wide audience. Beware: this is not always the case.
In-house forwarding of a digital newsletter: watch your step!
Daniël Haije, copyright attorney
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Is it allowed to forward an online newsletter to your colleagues? That depends on the question whether the publisher of the newsletter has given his consent. The district court of Amsterdam gave a judgment on this topic on 29 November 2011.
Energy Intelligence Group (EIG) offers a whole rage of online newsletters in the field of energy production, including Petroleum Intelligence Weekly (PIW) and Nefte Compass (NC). An employee from (at the time) Fortis had a subscription on both online newsletters and would forward them within the department of Commodities Energy. EIG was not pleased with this course of action. It had not given permission to forward the newsletters. According to EIG, Fortis therefore violated its copyright.
Fortis argued at the district court that the newsletters from EIG had not been made public, because they were forwarded within the department of the bank. The court does not decide on this publication argument in its judgment. Duplicating the newsletter (in this case: making digital copies) is not allowed without permission. That however, is exactly what has happened when the Fortis employee forwarded the digital newsletters. Conclusion: copyright infringement.
Is forwarding a digital newsletter always deemed to be a copyright infringement? No. If the copyright holder permits forwarding the newsletter, obviously there is no problem. For example, our own newsletter contains explicit permission to forward it. Permission can furthermore be given implicitly, for example when it is abundantly clear that the newsletter is intended to be distributed to a wide audience. Beware: this is not always the case.
In-house forwarding of a digital newsletter: watch your step!
Daniël Haije, copyright attorney