Re: Find first line FOLLOWING a sequence of matches

[Robert Thorpe]

I'm going to write one more message about this because this of off-topic
for help-gnu-emacs.

Bob Proulx <bob@proulx.com> writes:
> Were you worried?  I wasn't worried.  I was annoyed by the clueless
> and useless email disclaimer.  Those are such a waste of space.  We
> shouldn't even be giving it any discussion time.
>
> If someone's company forces that upon their email then out of common
> decency they should use different email when interacting with the
> public outside of their company business.  There are many free email
> providers available that won't abuse the users in that way.

Why?  It's just some more text to ignore.  It would make a bigger
difference to me if people wrote simpler messages.

> Here is one of many classic references on the topic.  There are many more.
>
>   
> http://web.archive.org/web/20060218213021/http://www.goldmark.org/jeff/stupid-disclaimers/

In that webpage the author quotes one source of law advice:
weblaw.co.uk.  That site actually *recommends* using disclaimers and he
quotes it:

# The value of disclaimers is limited, since the courts normally attach
# more weight to the substantive content of the communication and the
# circumstances in which it is made than to any disclaimer. Having said
# that, disclaimers may possibly be helpful if an issue ends up in court
# in various respects such as those described below and, since disclaimers
# cost (almost) nothing, it is worthwhile to use them. Even though their
# effectiveness in court is doubtful, they may provide a useful argument
# in negotiations to resolve a dispute.

> I disagree.  Clueless useless disclaimers such as those do harm the
> community.  They are rude.  They are completely insane.  They consume
> bandwidth and for those who pay metered bandwidth it does actually
> cost them more money.  They consume diskspace and waste our time
> avoiding reading them.  Think of the kittens!

In the modern world those are all very small problems.

IANAL, but I don't think much of Cory Doctorow's disclaimer.  The
disclaimer tries to limit my actions, it can't do that.  However, the
disclaimer that Subhan quotes can.  The message that Subhan sent is his
copyright.  He can request you don't do things with his email.

I don't use these disclaimers, but I understand why others do.  Let's
say you're a salesman, for example, and you send a quote to a customer.
That customer decides to send the quote to a competitor of yours.  If
you find that out, is there anything you can do?  In that case you'd
probably have a better day in court if the email specifically said that
the information in the message couldn't be copied.  At least that way
the customer couldn't argue that you meant it to be circulated.

I think your irritation is directed at the wrong people.  The real
problem here is that the law should be different.  For example, it would
make more sense if a company employee does not "speak for" their
employer.  Then things could be done the other way around, Spokesmen
could put "This message relays an official policy of FooCorp".

BR,
Robert Thorpe