I remember from my amateur radio course, and old versions of our local national regulation documents, that anyone is allowed to receive amateur radio transmissions. It's been claimed that international radio regulations (ITU RR probably) defines amateur radio transmissions to be public. It was also said that you can record and archive amateur radio transmissions. But where exactly is this defined, and what is the wording? Does it say somewhere that you are allowed to republish the recordings?
Recently it has become a popular sport to archive amateur radio communications, for long periods of time, and republish them on the Internet. I find it a logical extension of the "amateur radio transmissions are public" rule, and often useful. I do it myself for APRS data, even. Data storage is cheap and becoming cheaper, so it's probably a matter of time until someone archives the whole HF amateur spectrum for a year and makes it available on a nice web SDR service.
I've been browsing the ITU RR amateur service documents but can't find the section. I'm particularly interested in the international rules, or common variations of it in local regulations – not just FCC's view of it.