SUPER SPEAKER; A QUESTION OF SCAMS

1 A reminder: Daniel Alexander comes to QMIPRI

In case you missed Monday's announcement, leading intellectual property silk Daniel Alexander QC is speaking this Thursday, 29 September at 5.30pm in Dean Rees House, Charterhouse Square, London EC1 on Intellectual Property Litigation before the European Court of Justice. Drinks will be served, the company is scintillating and admission is absolutely free! If you're coming, please let us know by clicking here.


2 A question of copyright and public policy

Like most email users, the IPKat gets bombarded with scams. Some of these are invitations to send his bank details to someone who is masquerading as a bank (usually one for which he holds no accounts); others are 'Nigerian-style' or '419' scams that seek to invoke a mixture of misplaced pity and greed, inviting the addressee to cooperate in a scheme for removing vast sums of money from a developing country so that the scammer and his victim can share the proceeds. Finally there are the prizes and exotic holidays accruing from competitions he has never entered.

What the IPKat wonders is this: if he chose to compile a collection of the best scam emails he has received, publishing it as a regular book (he can just see it now, The IPKat Book of Champion Scams, available in all good bookshops), would he be liable to the scammers - if they dared to show their faces in court - for copyright infringement? Or would these scam-mails be deprived of copyright protection on public policy grounds? Also, what would the measure of damages be? He asks for readers' comments. Merpel grumbles, why is it always the readers' comments he wants, not mine ...?

More on scams here and here
Scambusters here