Regarding Twitter and copyright issues
From Twitter:
Twitter Terms of Service:
https://twitter.com/tos
Excerpt from Twitter Terms of Service:
Content on the Services
All Content, whether publicly posted or privately transmitted, is the sole responsibility of the person who originated such Content. We may not monitor or control the Content posted via the Services and, we cannot take responsibility for such Content. Any use or reliance on any Content or materials posted via the Services or obtained by you through the Services is at your own risk.
We do not endorse, support, represent or guarantee the completeness, truthfulness, accuracy, or reliability of any Content or communications posted via the Services or endorse any opinions expressed via the Services. You understand that by using the Services, you may be exposed to Content that might be offensive, harmful, inaccurate or otherwise inappropriate, or in some cases, postings that have been mislabeled or are otherwise deceptive. Under no circumstances will Twitter be liable in any way for any Content, including, but not limited to, any errors or omissions in any Content, or any loss or damage of any kind incurred as a result of the use of any Content posted, emailed, transmitted or otherwise made available via the Services or broadcast elsewhere.
Your Rights
You retain your rights to any Content you submit, post or display on or through the Services. By submitting, posting or displaying Content on or through the Services, you grant us a worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free license (with the right to sublicense) to use, copy, reproduce, process, adapt, modify, publish, transmit, display and distribute such Content in any and all media or distribution methods (now known or later developed).
Tip This license is you authorizing us to make your Tweets available to the rest of the world and to let others do the same.
You agree that this license includes the right for Twitter to make such Content available to other companies, organizations or individuals who partner with Twitter for the syndication, broadcast, distribution or publication of such Content on other media and services, subject to our terms and conditions for such Content use.
Tip Twitter has an evolving set of rules for how ecosystem partners can interact with your content. These rules exist to enable an open ecosystem with your rights in mind. But what’s yours is yours – you own your Content (and your photos are part of that Content)
Such additional uses by Twitter, or other companies, organizations or individuals who partner with Twitter, may be made with no compensation paid to you with respect to the Content that you submit, post, transmit or otherwise make available through the Services.
We may modify or adapt your Content in order to transmit, display or distribute it over computer networks and in various media and/or make changes to your Content as are necessary to conform and adapt that Content to any requirements or limitations of any networks, devices, services or media.
You are responsible for your use of the Services, for any Content you provide, and for any consequences thereof, including the use of your Content by other users and our third party partners. You understand that your Content may be rebroadcasted by our partners and if you do not have the right to submit Content for such use, it may subject you to liability. Twitter will not be responsible or liable for any use of your Content by Twitter in accordance with these Terms. You represent and warrant that you have all the rights, power and authority necessary to grant the rights granted herein to any Content that you submit.
Twitter gives you a personal, worldwide, royalty-free, non-assignable and non-exclusive license to use the software that is provided to you by Twitter as part of the Services. This license is for the sole purpose of enabling you to use and enjoy the benefit of the Services as provided by Twitter, in the manner permitted by these Terms.
....
Copyright and DMCA Policy: http://support.twitter.com/entries/15795
Topics Covered: (below are links)
• What is the DMCA ?
• What Types of Copyright Complaints Does Twitter Respond To?
• Am I a Copyright Holder? How Do I Know?
• What Information Do You Need To Process a Copyright Complaint?
• How Do I File a Copyright Complaint?
• How Are Claims Processed?
• What Happens Next?
• What Happens If I Receive a DMCA Notification?
• When Should I File a Counter-Notice?
• What Information Do You Need to Process a Counter-notice?
• What Happens After I Submit a Counter-notice?
• Filing a DMCA Notification or Counter-notice Is Serious Business!
Further Reading
Third party commentary:
The Blog Herald: http://www.blogherald.com/2008/05/05/copyright-and-twitter/
Copyright and Twitter
Every time a new technology comes along that aides communication, copyright inevitably becomes an issue with it, at least to some degree. From piano rolls to radios to televisions to the Web, every great technology has shifted the copyright landscape and has had its course altered, at least in some way, by those protections.
Twitter is no different in that regard, whether it is just a fad or the beginnings of something larger, Twitter as a technology raises copyright questions that are not easy to answer. The microblogging service is difficult to fit into any of the current copyright paradigms and seems to challenge what many think about posting on the Web.
So what copyright issues, if any, might exist with Twitter? To answer that, I’m going to take a look at the service from various angles to see if any potential copyright conflicts await the service.
Your Rights at Twitter
Twitter, in their terms of service, make it very clear that you own the rights to anything you post to the service. However, when looking at what is actually posted, such a statement seems almost unnecessary.
Twitter’s 140 character limit makes it difficult, though not impossible, to post a work that reaches the standard for copyrightability. Though short works, such as Haiku, can be protected by copyright, the majority of items posted to Twitter would not likely be seen as “original works of authorship”. They are simply too short and don’t usually reach the requisite level of creativity.
That being said, some tweets could be copyrighted if they met the description and, almost certainly, a collection of tweets from the same person could be copyrightable if they could be seen as one large work broken apart over many entries.
It is unclear how the courts would rule on this but such a case is unlikely. Simply put, the odds that the content of a tweet is both valuable enough to warrant a lawsuit and is properly registered with the copyright office is extremely unlikely.
The odds of anyone seriously pursuing copyright infringement of their tweets is slim to none.
Infringement On Twitter
The same as the character limit makes it difficult to claim and enforce copyright in a tweet, it also makes it difficult to infringe copyright on Twitter. With such a short limit, almost any content use would likely be considered fair. Furthermore, even if one decided there was an infringement on Twitter, most likely it would not be worth the effort to even file a takedown notice with the service.
The greatest risk, however, is with Twitter’s ability allow users to swap links. Though certainly safer than posting the content yourself, posting links to material known to be infringing can, in some cases, be an infringement itself. Services such as TwitPic make it easy to upload content and share them via link through Twitter, raising the possibility of users posting infringing works there and using Twitter as a means to promote it.
However, those issues would be taken up with those services and not with Twitter itself. In most cases, the copyright holder would just demand takedown of that work and would go through the standard DMCA process, such as what is outlined on TwitPic’s site.
It is unlikely that a Twitter user, simply by linking to allegedly infringing content, especially if they were unaware of the issues, could run into any significant trouble.
Twitter’s Role
Twitter, for their part, seems to be well protected under current copyright law. Their service almost certainly qualifies for protection under the DMCA Safe Harbor provisions, meaning that they are not likely to be held liable for any infringement that does take place through their service so long as they have no knowledge of it, do not profit directly from it and remove it if properly notified.
On their site, Twitter has a very complete copyright policy that includes all of the pertinent information regarding how to file a DMCA complaint. However, they have not registered their designated agent with the U.S. Copyright Office.
Unlike many new Web services, Twitter itself does not raise any significant copyright issues that could come back to haunt the company itself.
Other Issues
None of this is to say that Twitter is never going to raise any legal issues, just that, from a copyright standpoint, there is not a lot to worry about at this time. There are still other ways Twitter users could find themselves in legal hot water, including the following:
Invasion of Privacy: What you reveal about yourself over Twitter is your own business, but revealing private information about others without their permission can cause trouble. Even something as simple as saying where someone is can, under some situations, be considered an invasion of privacy.
Defamation: Damaging someone’s reputation by posting false information about them can lead to legal action in and of itself. Even seemingly harmless jokes, when taken the wrong way, can lead to such conflicts. Be careful of what you say on Twitter.
Trademark: If your Twitter username might cause others confusion, thinking that you have a relationship with a company or product when one does not exist, or you use Twitter to otherwise dilute a trademarked name, you could find yourself dealing with legal consequences.
In short, there are many reasons to be careful about what you say on Twitter, copyright just isn’t likely one of them.
Conclusions
From a legal perspective, Twitter is not much different than any other kind of blogging. Though the character limit puts a cap on the potential for copyright issues, one still have to be careful what they say and how they say it.
It is easy, when working on the Web, to lose sight of the fact that behind the screen names and email addresses are other human beings. As such, we often say and do things that we wouldn’t dream of doing in civilized society.
However, those actions can come with real-world consequences and it is important to keep the legal dangers in mind when doing anything on the Web, be it blogging, sharing photos or using Twitter.
No one wants to be on the receiving end of a lawsuit and the best way to avoid that is to consider the potential consequences before you act and show respect to others with everything you do.
There is no way to guarantee you will never be sued, but you can certainly minimize the chances of it.
