Contact us Sign up for newsletters. Log In Register now My account. Meghan Markle letter: what the law says about copyright, public interest and privacy Just because something is interesting to the public, does not mean that it is in the public interest Prince Harry, Duke of Sussex and Meghan Markle, Duchess of Sussex Photo: Getty.
By i Academics. Sorry, there was a problem. More from Opinion. Ian Dunt The most concerning thing about Geoffrey Cox's other job is that there is no rule against it. Opinion Real or not, fears of 'critical race theory' could put Trump back in power. Opinion Hopes of a flexible working revolution are fading with the pandemic. Information: Letters. Created On 6th June Last Updated On 11th June In that case the only person entitled to the email would be the very last recipient.
As regards options iii and iv the judge considered that there was no point in either of those given that there would only be very rare circumstances where someone might legitimately want to prevent someone else from using an email sent to them and where they could not already rely on the law of confidence to do so.
The judge also rejected option v on the basis that that would lead to absurd results as well. For example, anyone who sent you an email could on that basis demand access to your servers to see to whom you forwarded the email and that could apply to anyone no matter how many people stood between you and the original sender. Essentially, there was no good reason for saying that anyone had a proprietary right in the emails apart from the fact that the company had no other avenue in English law in order to obtain the emails or chose not to pursue them if it had.
That was not good enough. As set out above the facts in this case are unusual in that unlike most cases this was not about restricting disclosure or use of the contents of the emails. However the point I want to make in this article is not that we as lawyers can do wonderful things to get your emails back or stop people using them if we have to and I am therefore not going to go into what else could be done if you do want to know more about that, feel free to give me a call.
I simply want to make the practical point that an awful lot of legal argument and expense could have been saved if the Dutch company had arranged their computer systems so that all important correspondence was sent through their server and saved securely.
For this reason, it definitely would be a breach of copyright for a friend to publish the letters that you had sent him or her, and you could seek an injunction to prevent such publication, or damages if the publication had already taken place. The friend would have a defence, however, if he or she could prove that you had given 'licence' permission.
Such permission may be explicit or implied. There have been many notable cases of the kind mentioned in the question. For example, Prince Albert successfully sought an injunction to prevent a printer from reproducing and selling private engravings of himself and Queen Victoria. So if I have an autographed letter from Margaret Thatcher, I can sell it, lend it for public exhibition, etc. But I can't publish the contents or allow anyone else to do so.
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