A few threads skimmed the issue lately.

Not sure,  I assume it would hold much more weight than a verbal agreement,  similiar to a voice recording or phone recording,  but maybe not as powerful as a written out contract signed, witnessed,  sealed and delivered.


Various opinions from various states.

FYI,  in NY state I am allowed to tape a conversation without permission of the others,(audio no video) as long as I am a part of the conversation.

I see a lot of people recommending to save emails as proof but I dunno, they're so easy to edit I don't see how they could possibly hold up in court.

I'm not a lawyer, but from what I've heard, the e-mails that are being used in major court cases come from those regular backups made off corporate enterprise servers.

It's hard to tamper with multi-terabyte size backups without moving a few electrons out of place, and tampering is usually obvious by looking at the preceeding and following backups, and then comparing the header information on the e-mails with router logs from the company in question and others nearby on the Internet.

I could be totally wrong, but that's the way I understand it.

When the model agrees to conditions before the session, I print out the in box browser page (has the e-mail dates, sender and subject) and the browser page message with the proposed conditions and reply to a pdf file. That gets kept until the release and use agreement is signed.

The famous Vincent DiCarlo three levels of documentation:

Level 1: written notes kept by yourself (Act! or day book)
Level 2: written documents sent by mail or e-mail
Level 3: documents presented to the recipient that are signed by them

In many court cases, logs/diaries/electronic reminders can be used as evidence. Written letters or e-mails are better. Vincent says challenges are rare, but even with a challenge, it's powerful evidence in the absence of contravening evidence. The best of course, is Level 3 - the signed document.

Remember that in civil courts, only a preponderance of evidence is required, not beyond the benefit of doubt. Besides, nothing like the joy of serving a subpoena to MM for the e-mail database!

Recently had the experience with emails being used as proof. It wasn't related to any photography issues but it did not hold water in court. I'm in Florida so can't speak to other states.

I have custody of my daughter because of my ex's prolific emails to me. I used them in the divorce and the child custody hearings. The judge accepted them as legal. My ex tried to enter only certain emails mostly my response to hers, it looked bad for me until I produced the entire email conversation in full. I believe if you have the entire email conversation from start to finish a judge will accept them and give them due weight in their consideration.

You can form a binding contract by e-mail.  It's done all the time in business settings.  If one party alleges that the e-mail offered as evidence was tampered with, you could get into an argument over that, but that's no different from handwritten notes, word processed or typed documents (recall the Dan Rather fiasco) or pictures for that matter that are used as evidence.

emails are discoverable under federal rules, but there usually needs to be some sort of guarantee against spoliation (alteration).  this is the crap i dealt with in my now deceased day job.

Emails, in general, are admissible evidence in court proceedings provided they in other ways comply with the jurisdiction's Rules of Evidence. (Yes, that is capitalized for a reason.) They are subject to attack under the Best Evidence rule and other procedural and evidentiary attacks like any other evidence. If you have the headers and can show that the hops are reasonable, a technologically savvy judge should be willing to at least consider them.

M

Again -- "not a lawyer" caveat:

Let's not confuse "e-mail as evidence" with "e-mail as a binding contract".  I've seen people here talk about using e-mail as evidence (e.g. in the child custody example), and such e-mails only require that a single person's "voice" in included in the e-mail. 

Binding contracts, however, require an agreement of two or more "voices".  That's why "real" contracts are written on paper & are signed by hand, thereby proving that all parties are agreeing to the same document.  The problem with e-mails is that several different copies with several different terms might be sent back & forth, and it is often difficult to determine which version is the one everyone agrees to.

Example:
   Photog:  Okay, we'll work this Friday @ 3:00pm for 3 hours; I'll pay you $100.
   Model:   Let's work on Saturday @ 1:00pm for 3 hours; I'll accept $300 from you.

Which is binding?

That's where the documentation has to kick in. Always send a confirmation if a contract isn't going to be signed.

If there's a discussion and a verbal agreement, ALWAYS follow up with a confirming e-mail or letter if they don't want to do a contract. The documentation of the agreement usually stands up in court. I've had no challenges to that process yet (fingers crossed).

Date
Hours
Pay rate
Pay method
Usage
Terms
What's provided & when
What's NOT provided

You can always ask for a letter of intent from them too.

For complicated agreements of course you want it all written out and signed first.

So the original question:  How legal are emails as far as proving agreement?

Based on the discussion, I'd say this.  If you are involving lawyers in a dispute, I'd guess that e-mails are a shaky foundation on which to prove your agreement.

It is legal and if you have the terms and the reply - that's fine. It has to be pretty clear.

But there's the rule of risks. The more risk at stake, the better documentation you need. For instance, I've had 16mm film assignments where $6,000 of film stock has to be pre-ordered and the crew booked. I wouldn't do that without a signed agreement.

If I have to expend money and a days time before the shoot, I'd think hard about it. If it's a simple test or $1,000 job with no special prep, the e-mails are fine. But I'm a documentation freak. I log phone calls and send e-mail confirmations.

Once, on a job one of the suppliers was being flaky about their contract service for a special camera that was needed. I started a detailed log just in case. Date and time of phone calls, what was said. They goofed on the service and it cost me billable time. At the end of the job the camera people tried to blow it off and I had the log to support me to the tune of $10k.

Anytime there's more risk, the documentation level has to go up.