How To Piss People Off: Publish A Book Using Their Tweets Without Asking Them First

from the common-courtesy dept

Tue, Apr 13th 2010 10:03am — Dennis Yang

A few years ago, when Twitter was starting to take off, we questioned whether or not Tweets were covered under copyright. While technically tweets could definitely be covered by copyright, it's still a little bit murky, especially with the "retweet" as an integral part of Twitter culture. That said, there's no doubt that people feel ownership over their tweets, especially those who lovingly craft wit and humor into each of the 140 characters. Recently, the editor of the book Tweet Nothings, a book of curated Tweets, sent an apologetic letter to the people whose Tweets were included in the book -- after the book had already been published in December:

Dear Mr. Barnes,

We sincerely apologize for using your Tweet in our "Tweet Nothings" book without contacting you prior to publication! I wrote the introduction and compiled quotes from Twitter for the book at the direction of the publisher. I do not make any money from this work. We did want to contact each person quoted in the book; the publisher's legal advisors said it was not necessary under fair use guidelines. We sincerely view this book as a celebration of Twitter, and an introduction to some of the best and brightest people to follow. We are very sorry if you or anyone is offended or upset by the book.

I would be more than happy to send you copies of the book. Please accept my apologies.

Sincerely yours,
Suzanne Schwalb

While the apology is an admirable step, the anger seen in the reviews of the book on Amazon is not unexpected. This is not a "fair-use versus copyright" issue at all. This is a "doing the smart, right thing" issue. Whether or not we think that people should feel ownership over their "ideas" is moot -- the issue here is that they do, and as such, to ignore that is short sighted. Books have successfully been assembled using Tweets before. For his book, Twitter Wit, editor Nick Douglas did a good job working with Tweet authors, who had to explicitly submit their best Tweets to be included in the book. As a result, not only was his book received favorably by the Twitter community, every one of the included authors, who are supposedly the most witty on Twitter, each became a promoter for the sale of the book -- a winning promotional combination.

So, by not involving the Tweet authors in the publishing of Tweet Nothings, the publishers not only attracted the ire of the wronged authors, but also missed out on a huge opportunity for free, viral promotion. After the exchange with Barnes, the publisher, Peter Pauper Press, issued an official apology in which it said:

We regret that we did not contact the people whose quotes we used in advance. We will be contacting each one with an apology. In the meantime, we are ceasing to sell the book in all venues and will not resume sales until everyone quoted in the book is satisfied with our response.

If that's the case, and if the publisher stays true to their word, then they may never be able to sell the book again. After all, Merlin Mann, one of the wronged Tweet authors, seems irrecovably pissed.

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Filed Under: copyright, ideas, social mores, twitter
Companies: peter pauper press

60 Comments

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Anonymous Coward, 13 Apr 2010 @ 10:13am

you should talk to the masnick. he would think this is a fine use of public information. no privacy no rights no control its information that wants to be free. get on the masnick program already!
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ChurchHatesTucker (profile), 13 Apr 2010 @ 10:15am

Oh please
Yeah, Michael Mann (@hotdogsladies) got his panties in a twist over this, too.

Look, the idea that every bon mot that drops from your mouth (or fingers) is worth the weight of the state defending is a pretty recent one. (See Mickey Mouse Copyright.)

In a fair and just world, anyone who is concerned about this would be required to add a copyright notice to their tweets.
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foobar, 13 Apr 2010 @ 10:25am

How is this any different from quoting people from another medium? Presuming that they take single tweets from any one person, this seems like fair use.
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Anonymous Coward, 13 Apr 2010 @ 10:25am

Re:
Way to knock that straw man down! You sure showed it! I bask in your ability to argue logically and with creativity. Are you some sort of highly original artist? I'll save you from your own response! "hi mike"

So original. How do you do it?
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Dennis Yang (profile), 13 Apr 2010 @ 10:30am

Re: Oh please
It's not a fair use/copyright issue at all -- the publisher here is most likely covered by fair use, but the issue here is that they clearly missed an opportunity to involve everyone in the project.

So, even though you may be legally "in the right" it doesn't necessarily mean that you should blindly proceed.
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Dennis Yang (profile), 13 Apr 2010 @ 10:31am

Re: Oh please
And yes.. I linked to Merlin Mann at the end of the post.
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Anonymous Coward, 13 Apr 2010 @ 10:32am

Re:
What does this have to do with privacy? :/
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Hephaestus (profile), 13 Apr 2010 @ 10:46am

Re: Oh please
"anyone who is concerned about this would be required to add a copyright notice to their tweets."

Funny thing the copyright would be longer than the tweet ...

"Look, the idea that every bon mot that drops from your mouth (or fingers) is worth the weight of the state defending is a pretty recent one."

This sense of entitlement is pretty disturbing and disgusting to me. This "I said that first you cant use it" mentality is the stupidest thing and it is only getting worse. Personally I would have gone down the there is no such thing as bad publicity route and totally hazed these idiots. It would have caused a ton of blog entries, hate mail and tweets, people tweeting dont buy this book, etc, all free publicity. Mike talks about things back firing for people
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Hephaestus (profile), 13 Apr 2010 @ 10:47am

"especially those who lovingly craft wit and humor into each of the 140 characters"

Please you act like they are writting a great work of literature. They are throwing out one liners.
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ChurchHatesTucker (profile), 13 Apr 2010 @ 10:49am

Re: Re: Oh please
"And yes.. I linked to Merlin Mann at the end of the post."

Damn, how do I keep missing that stuff? I guess I get post happy when I see a topic I know about.

"So, even though you may be legally "in the right" it doesn't necessarily mean that you should blindly proceed."

Well, yeah, there's the law, and then there's what's right.
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scarr (profile), 13 Apr 2010 @ 10:51am

Re: Re: Oh please
It's strange to see this perspective on this blog. Someone created something new by using freely, legally available quotes, and you're claiming the assembler is not "right" for doing it. ("This is a 'doing the smart, right thing' issue.")

Masnick often makes a point of saying those "wronged" when their material is appropriated shouldn't feel wronged, but should instead see it as an opportunity for more free exposure.

I agree the publisher could've involved the tweeters and had some free promotion as a result. The fact still remains that they didn't do anything wrong or against these people. They even credit them (via twitter handle) as the sources. What is wrong with that?
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ChurchHatesTucker (profile), 13 Apr 2010 @ 10:53am

Re: Re: Oh please
"This sense of entitlement is pretty disturbing and disgusting to me. This "I said that first you cant use it" mentality is the stupidest thing and it is only getting worse"

I can only picture twelve-year-old girls shouting "Stop copying me!" when I hear this crap.

Unfortunately, our legal system seems to have devolved to the level of twelve-year-old girls over the past few decades.
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R. Miles (profile), 13 Apr 2010 @ 11:00am

Again, IP fails logic.
"This is a 'doing the smart, right thing' issue."
No offense, but this isn't even a "right thing" issue. It's another attempt at a "It's mine!" issue by those who felt their "tweets were stolen" for a book.

It's an asinine approach, copyright or not, permission or not. Seriously, what the hell are people thinking when they're placing content in the public domain then bitch when someone utilizes it for a completely separate project.

Any twitter user who is upset their tweets were used in the book, and are complaining, are doing nothing more than fueling the problem of ownership via "intellectual property".

Do note my use of the word "intellectual" is against my will, as there's no intelligence to be found in issues like the one presented in this article.
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Hephaestus (profile), 13 Apr 2010 @ 11:00am

Re: Re: Oh please
oops last line unfinished ...

Mike talks about things back firing for people this is a perfect example of where you can use a screw up to your advantage. The streisand effect is a double edged tool. After all we are talking about this book here on techdirt. We just need to fan the flames and get these twits (is that what you call a person who tweets?) to do our advertising for us....
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Anonymous Coward, 13 Apr 2010 @ 11:02am

Re:
Which are all protected by copyright for the duration of their lives plus an extra 70 years after their death.

Was that more than 140 characters?

Copyright won't cause any trouble or problems in the 21st century. Nope. Not going to happen. That's absurd!
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Dark Helmet (profile), 13 Apr 2010 @ 11:02am

Re: Re: Re: Oh please
"I can only picture twelve-year-old girls..."

The thought police have issued a thought warrant for your thought arrest....
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Hephaestus (profile), 13 Apr 2010 @ 11:04am

Re: Re: Re: Oh please
"Unfortunately, our legal system seems to have devolved to the level of twelve-year-old girls over the past few decades."

I cant decide if this is the schools going LCD over the past 20 years, something in the water, the first visible sign of a nanny state, or if people are just being born stupid recently.
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Designerfx (profile), 13 Apr 2010 @ 11:06am

Re: Re: Re: Oh please
you are correct on all fronts.

Publisher didn't have to ask anyone, but could have informed them beforehand to set up a way to promote th book.

Meanwhile, said people included could use it as a viral feature "I was in a book!" etc.
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Ima Fish (profile), 13 Apr 2010 @ 11:08am

Mike, someone has taken over your blog. He's talking about rights that don't exist in the law. He's talking against fair use and stuff. He's making me feel uncomfortable because suddenly I have feelings of empathy for twitterers. Help!
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Hephaestus (profile), 13 Apr 2010 @ 11:09am

Re: Re:
"Was that more than 140 characters?"

~111 characters with the period.
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Anonymous Coward, 13 Apr 2010 @ 11:12am

Re: Re: Re:
You are both a gentleman and a scholar.
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Anonymous Coward, 13 Apr 2010 @ 11:14am

http://twitter.com/tos

"This license is you authorizing us to make your Tweets available to the rest of the world and to let others do the same. But what’s yours is yours – you own your content."

Suzanne Schwalb, can't you read TOS? Bitch please. Fair use would be excerpts of a tweet.
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Dennis Yang (profile), 13 Apr 2010 @ 11:16am

Re: Re: Re: Oh please
Yup.. you're completely right. If *I* were included in the book, I'd be thrilled.

But people *are* angry by the way they handled it, and it was shortsighted on the part of the publisher (who should know how authors think) to not realize that people would be pissed..

The fact that they said:

"We did want to contact each person quoted in the book; the publisher's legal advisors said it was not necessary under fair use guidelines."

Was a bit lame -- really? Hiding behind what your lawyers told you?
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Anonymous Coward, 13 Apr 2010 @ 11:16am

I find it nothing short of amazing that persons who may decry the concept of copyright rail in indignation when their "stuff" is used without their permission.

It appears that double standards are alive and well.
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Anonymous Coward, 13 Apr 2010 @ 11:34am

Re: Re:
hi mike
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Chronno S. Trigger (profile), 13 Apr 2010 @ 11:34am

Re: Re: Re: Oh please
I don't see how this is not in line with Techdirt. The general idea here is that they are in the right legally, but they are in the wrong in costumer relations.

It's the same thing Mike says about the RIAA lawsuits: Just because you can legally do it doesn't mean you should.
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Anonymous Coward, 13 Apr 2010 @ 11:35am

Re:
fair use never hurts until it is against you.
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scarr (profile), 13 Apr 2010 @ 11:35am

Re:
Fair use doesn't say you can only quote part of a sentence. You'll notice nobody is making a copyright violation claim here.
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gf999111 (profile), 13 Apr 2010 @ 11:38am

paper vs digital
it just goes to show how differently people view the two mediums - paper and digital

i think that people still view their online info as being secure and their own ......

it is difficult for people to accept that their words can be used by anyone anytime .... hey it happens all the time when we speak and then tell someone else that someone else said this ....

or is it all about the $
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A Dan (profile), 13 Apr 2010 @ 11:47am

Re:
I agree. Presumably, so did the publisher's legal department. People are overreacting, and everyone here seems to recognize that. It's the publisher's choice to not run it by the tweets' authors, and I don't think they did anything wrong, but they would have been wise to expect backlash.
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Anonymous Coward, 13 Apr 2010 @ 11:58am

Re: Re: Re:
You're adorable.
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Hephaestus (profile), 13 Apr 2010 @ 11:59am

Re: Re: Re: Re:
"a gentleman and "

Its the Tux the penguin is wearing isnt it ...
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ChurchHatesTucker (profile), 13 Apr 2010 @ 12:00pm

Re: paper vs digital
It's all about $. People get nutty when they find out someone's making a buck.
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Anonymous Coward, 13 Apr 2010 @ 12:06pm

Re: Re: Re: Re: Oh please
Do the publishers of Bartlett's Quotations contact living authors?
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Anonymous Coward, 13 Apr 2010 @ 12:06pm

I find it odd that the Twitter authors aren't embracing innovative business models to their own advantage. I mean, if these books are actually making money, then one of the Twiter authors who was included in the book could make their own Twitter-based book. Hell, they could even contact all the authors they wanted. And they could Tweet themselves to popularity. "If you liked my quotes in ____, you'll love my new Tweet-book _______!" Connect with your fans and give them a reason to buy your stuff. The fact that people are getting upset over what is clearly a fair use case is kind of sickening. Just because you have an expectation of privacy/exclusivity/whatever, does not make it so.

Connect with your fans and reap the benefits. Use innovative business models to show the market why your product is better. Don't cling to outdated and broken ideas like royalties.
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ChurchHatesTucker (profile), 13 Apr 2010 @ 12:08pm

Re: Re: Oh please
"It's not a fair use/copyright issue at all -- the publisher here is most likely covered by fair use"

Um, OK. So it's an outrage issue. *opens tiny violin case*
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Anonymous Coward, 13 Apr 2010 @ 12:13pm

WTF is wrong with people feeling bad about somebody else using words? Are those people mentally challenged?
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Anonymous Coward, 13 Apr 2010 @ 12:15pm

Re:
The issue here is that the Twits are falling victim to the same trap the publisher did. Instead of tearing down the book, they should want to use it as a stepping stone for their own success. If you increase the sales (or refrain from trying to decrease the sales) of this non-attributing book, then you can use its popularity to boost sales of your own (presumably better) book. The free market will decide which approach (atrributing vs. non-attributing) is better.

By passing up this chance to increase their own revenue, the Twitter users are proving that they are not at all concerned with using innovative business models to improve the market. They are just looking for something to be outraged at and they found it.
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Dark Helmet (profile), 13 Apr 2010 @ 12:15pm

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
Don't lie to us, that penguin is nekid....
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Anonymous Coward, 13 Apr 2010 @ 12:22pm

The appropriate response to recognizing the fact that someone is not making the maximum possible profits is not: Bitch and moan on the internet and rate their product poorly on Amazon.

The appropriate response is to realize you can do better and then: Blow them out of the water with an even better business model and make enough money to build your own version of Scrooge McDuck's money bin.
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william (profile), 13 Apr 2010 @ 12:28pm

Honestly, the "irrecovably pissed" guy sounds like a gigantic hypocrite to me.

He calls himself defender of fair use and such but is bitching major time when someone fair use his stuff? Time to act what you believe in.

If he's a true believer in fair use, he wouldn't be this angry over this incident. Pissed maybe, but not angry. Yeah it's in poor taste to not ask first, but the law does not require you to ask. Obviously this guy's "sense of entitlement" has a real clash with his fake belief of being a "defender of fair use".
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Anonymous Coward, 13 Apr 2010 @ 12:33pm

Re:
If he were really a defender of fair use, he would be able to make a competing product based on his own principles. I'm sure the time he has devoted to being pissed about this is comparable to the time it takes to copy/paste a few hundred tweets into a doc. Then, after he made his superior product, he could release it to the market. It would be a smash hit, decimating his opponent's sales; proving once-and-for-all that his methods are better. Unless, of course, he's just a hyprocrite. In that case, he would probably spend his time complaining about it and not doing anything constructive.
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ChurchHatesTucker (profile), 13 Apr 2010 @ 1:02pm

Re: Re: Re: Re: Oh please
Hey! I just said that they were shouting at each other, not making out with their moms in a tub of Jello, you sick bastard.
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Michael Lockyear, 13 Apr 2010 @ 1:21pm

The publishers are creating a bad moral precedent...we should not (and in fact do not) need permission to quote something stated in public!
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Anonymous Coward, 13 Apr 2010 @ 1:53pm

So does the book have a copyright?
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Marcel de Jong (profile), 13 Apr 2010 @ 3:02pm

Re: Re:
No, indeed, Merlin Mann was actually making a theft claim, which is actually worse.
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Marcel de Jong (profile), 13 Apr 2010 @ 3:05pm

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
The clothes are a lie?
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Chargone (profile), 13 Apr 2010 @ 5:20pm

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Oh please
well... now you did.
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Anonymous Coward, 13 Apr 2010 @ 5:32pm

Several years ago an author quoted me extensively in a book he wrote about selling on Ebay. Since I posted the original messages in a public user forum on Ebay, the author probably didn't have to bother getting my permission to quote anything, but he - and the publisher - did request my permission via email, and I received a copy of the book once it went to press. There are easy ways to engage participants in wanting to be a part of whatever you're working on. I've been quoted anonymously in other published work, always with my permission.
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Hilary, 13 Apr 2010 @ 6:02pm

Huh?
I've been following the uproar over this, and think this is an example of bad bullying behavior. It's easy to be a mean twit through twitter. Did anyone talk to this editor personally...on the phone? Or meet her in person? Would you all really be this mean if you actually had to deal with this in person rather than behind your usernames? Talk about being unprofessional!
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Anonymous Coward, 13 Apr 2010 @ 7:04pm

Re: Re:
the masnick thinks anything in public is just digital and free. why should they be upset with a reprinting of facts?
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IP Esq, 13 Apr 2010 @ 7:43pm

What ever happened to short phrases not being protected by copyright? Those don't fall under fair use, which is an affirmative defense. Without having read the book, I can only assume that some, if not many, of those 140 character or under phrases would be considered uncopyrightable.

Would it have been the right thing to do for the publisher to contact the authors? Absolutely. Was it infringement for not doing so? Likely not.

Anonymous Coward: Yes, the book itself would have a copyright as a compilation. This would give the author of the book the rights to the order and selection of the tweets, but not to the tweets themselves.
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Anonymous Coward, 13 Apr 2010 @ 8:18pm

Re: Re: Re:
"the masnick thinks anything in public is just digital and free."

But pubic tweets clearly have nothing to do with privacy. Hence why they're called "public"
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Anonymous Coward, 13 Apr 2010 @ 10:34pm

Re: Re:
A single tweet (which can be more than one sentence, btw) IS the whole body of work. Copying it in its entirety isn't fair use.

A person's timeline isn't a novel from which you can cherry pick the best quotes, it's a collection of 140-characters-long distinct, separate "works".
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Coches nuevos, 14 Apr 2010 @ 3:33am

it ain't no cool
Uff, bad manners @cochespuntocom
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DH's love child, 14 Apr 2010 @ 6:07am

Re: Re: Re: Re:
"the masnick thinks anything in public is just digital and free."

UM, unless he dramatically changed the spelling of his name, the masnick didn't write this article, so why are you trying to drag his name into it?
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ChurchHatesTucker (profile), 14 Apr 2010 @ 10:32am

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Oh please
Dammit!
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Anonymous Coward, 14 Apr 2010 @ 12:42pm

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
Because our Anonymous Coward with a fear of upper-case capitalization is kind of dumb.
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IP Esq, 16 Apr 2010 @ 3:26am

Re: Re: Re:
The amount of the work taken is but one of the four factors that must be analyzed to determine fair use, and no one single factor is determinative. As such, taking the entirety of a work (in this case, a tweet) doesn't negate the possibility of a successful Fair Use defense.

That being said, I still stick to the assertion that a Fair Use discussion is likely moot in regards to most of the tweets at issues since short phrases aren't protectable by copyright.
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Anonymous Coward, 9 Oct 2017 @ 5:30pm

Re: Again, IP fails logic.
Correct. Twitter is already making tons of money from its users' tweets without paying any of its users royalties. But no one is complaining about that.
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