Blue-checked journo suggests that publishing Hunter Biden emails was ‘a plain copyright violation’

Twitchy ^ | Posted at 10:58 am on December 7, 2022 by Sarah D

[Red Badger]

After “The Twitter Files” dropped and we were actually able to see the evidence of collusion between Twitter execs and the Biden administration to suppress reporting about Hunter Biden’s laptop, a whole bunch of journalists have been on a real crusade to delegitimize Matt Taibbi’s reporting and make Taibbi and Elon Musk look like the bad guys here, like they’re the ones who did something wrong.

One of those journalists is apparently James Surowiecki, author of “The Wisdom of Crowds” and kneejerk defender of Hunter Biden’s honor. Here’s what Surowiecki had to offer to the conversation surrounding the material that provided the New York Post with something to write about:

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James Surowiecki @JamesSurowiecki ·

Hunter Biden owns the copyright to his emails (and images). Abandoning the computer in the repair shop did not change that, nor did it give the repair-shop owner a right to the computer's data. So what was the legal justification for allowing the publication of the emails?

Certainly a newspaper could quote short snippets of the emails, and summarize their contents, under fair use. But how was the publication of Hunter's private photos, to which he owned legal right, and the reproduction of his emails not a plain copyright violation?

11:30 PM · Dec 6, 2022

Read the full conversation on Twitter

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[Flash Bazbeaux]

None of what was in the laptop was registered with the Copyright Office. You don’t need registration to have the right, but it makes it much harder to sue, and what you can recover is far, far, less. Essentially nothing. That’s not even taking fair use into account, which this would clearly be.

[John Milner]

They’re obviously panicked - so throwing all kinds of Sh!t at the wall, hoping like hell something, ANYTHING!!! sticks - to pull their boy BiteMe out of the fire.

[Boogieman]

“So what was the legal justification for allowing the publication of the emails?”

Public interest, just like when any newspaper publishes copyrighted material from a corporate whistleblower.

[packagingguy]

So who writes an email and then applies for a copywrite on it???

https://www.copyright.gov/

[Libloather]

The Hunter Brandon story - still about the story, not the crimes.

[Words Matter]

They never cease to amaze..

[GulliverSwift]

This is one of the stupidest ideas I’ve seen in a long time. What a maroon!

[SmokingJoe]

Because by law, Hunter defaulted the computer to John Paul Mac Isaac, and that computer, that disk, and the contents therein became his. And here's the thing — Hunter made no attempt to get them back, which says a lot about how he deliberately wanted payback on his father, for fomenting Hunter's 2nd-choice-to-BeauBeau f’d-up life.

YUP.

[StAnDeliver]

"I’m no lawyer, but I don’t think evidence of illegal acts are covered by copyright laws."

How are they 'evidence' of anything to John Paul? Evidence of why his customer didn't pay, at best.

The laptop is John Paul's. The hard drive is John Paul's.

You think this is the first time this scenario has ever happened? Show me anyone who has been charged with anything doing exactly what they pleased with a hard drive obtained from a dropped pawn or the rare state or two that allows escheatment to the repair shop like Delaware.

[x]

Then all of journalism is a copyright violation.

It’s not a copyright violation if you didn’t copyright it.