On Jan 29, 2014, at 1:41 PM, Eric Smith <spacewar at gmail.com> wrote:
I don't recall the exact wording, but basically
any setup that scans a
physical document, transfers a representation over a telecommunication
system, and recreates it as s physical document again meets the US legal
definition of facsimile. There doesn't have to be a "fax machine" as you
would normally consider it, and Internet email should qualify for the
telecommunication, but if the document doesn't start and end in physical
form, it isn't a fax.
In other words, if I sign a paper contract, scan it, email it to someone,
and they print it, it has been faxed. But if I start with a PDF file, sign
it in a graphics program, and email that, it has not been faxed because it
did not originate as a physical document. If the PDF was originally a scan
of a paper document, but I fill it in digitally, then email it, that's not
a fax because the electronic document is not an accurate, unaltered
representation of a physical document.
[I'm not a lawyer, so take this with a suitably large grain of salt.]
No bank I've dealt with seems to think that way. They're the only
reason I ever have to fax anything anymore. Fortunately it's seldom
enough (and little enough) that I can usually make use of the three
or so free pages provided by a number of web-to-fax gateways.
- Dave