(un)published works and email re: Email Archive Request

[James Miller <James_Miller@Lawyer.com>]

Martin Luther King Jr.' s estate brought a successful claim of 
infringment for his "I have a dream speech" on the basis that it was 
"unpublished" within the meaning of hte statute.


I wonder if the string of cases for defamation/tort for Email's (seems 
like AOL was implicated in one suit) don't mention unpublished 
copyrighted works in the email list context??


<sam@uchicago.edu> --

Note that transfer is required, and public preformance does not
qualify.  Also note that the legislative history makes clear that
broadcast does not qualify as publication.  

I would disagree with it, but I think a serious case could be made
that emails send to mailing lists are unpublished, and merely
publically preformed.  Unfortunately, I haven't been able to find any
court cases dealing with email.