Are emails protected under copyright law?

I think you are hitting on several issues. First, a copyright interest is created when the creative work is completed and fixed in a tangible form. The question is not whether the email is protected but whether the contents of that email meet the criteria necessary to be covered by copyright law. If so, the copyright happens automatically, but this does not mean that any such material should not be properly registered with the US Copyright Office, which offer numerous benfits (see link below for more info). So, for example, an email that merely describes a story idea and plot line would likley not consists of enough creative expression to warrant any copyright protection (you cannot copyright the idea of a story but rather the story itself), but it does depend. If, however, you submitted a completed chapter of a larger work and that was the substance of the email I would say that it would be covered under copyright law. That said, when you send unsolicited material to publishers, etc they are not under any obligation to give you credit or not to use such concepts unless there was some explicit written agreement in place. If you truly believe that you were taken advantage of, then I would discuss the situation with a lawyer in private and see what if anything could be done. Most of us here, including myself, offer a free phone consult and I will link you to some general helpful info on this subject below. Best regards, Frank Natoli-Lapin, LLC New York, NY (see Disclaimer)

What you're coming across here is the idea/expression divide - your email is protected by copyright, but, absent some sort of nondisclosure agreement signed by the editor (which they obviously won't sign in cases like this), they can use the idea however they like. Often, magazines and other publications are already working on dozens of stories you don't know about - one of which could be very similar to what you're pitching. Additionally, they receive pitches from writers like yourself regularly and many are going to address the same or related topics. This is why shopping around story or article ideas can be very difficult. For authors shopping books, I generally recommend that they register a copyright in the unpublished manuscript to protect themselves from being ripped off by unscrupulous editors. In a case like yours, though, where you aren't offering the finished product (or close to finished) but rather the method, a copyright isn't going to afford any protection because there isn't a work, yet. Copyright is meant to protect your expression - your art, your story, your photograph - not the underlying ideas. Anyone can write a story about glittery vampires that love humans for no particular reason (see Hollywood evidence), but only Stephanie Meyer gets the right to print and sell copies of the Twilight books.

This question highlights the danger of working without legal guidance and then trying to lock the barn after the animals have escaped. You have likely given away your story pitches for free forever due to lack of the steps necessary to protect them. The ideas in the story are not copyright protected, only the expression of the ideas in the form it is fixed. And, you appear not to have registered your copyright protection so you would have no jurisdiction to sue anyone even if they copied verbatim until you did. So, it might seem to you like it's stealing your work, but it's your fault because you didn't see an attorney, didn't get a registration and let it happen. But, as with the horse, if you get an expert to help you, it might not be hopeless and you might get that horse back in the barn.

E-mails can be protected by copyright law but you are not asking the right question because you do not understanding something basic---IP laws generally do not protect general ideas. When you pitch a general concept or idea for a show, book or story, you run a substantial risk if there is no non-disclosure agreement requiring the persons with whom you share the idea to maintain confidentiality. The good news, which my colleagues have not commented upon, is that recent developments in the law of implied contracts help people in your situation---if you can prove that you made a pitch and that your idea was expropriated, courts in New York, California and other jurisdictions have been recently willing in some cases to find that there was an implied contract that if the editor or producer used your idea, you would be paid fair and reasonable compensation. Until recently California was the only jurisdiction in which such claims are viable, but New York courts have begun to recognize them. Thus, even though you made a major blunder by failing to retain counsel to protect you at the time you tried to pitch your idea, recent decisions may bail you out--but you will need to retain legal counsel to pursue your claims--and a case like this does not lend itself to contingency representation. Be prepared to pay significant legal fees if you want to pursue this.