Letting Famous People Interact Online? Patented! Twitter Sued

from the oh-come-on dept

Mike Wokasch accidentally alerted us to the news that Twitter is being sued for patent infringement over what may be one of the most ridiculous patents we've seen in a long time. The patent, 6,408,309, is for a "method and system for creating an interactive virtual community of famous people." And yes, the USPTO actually approved this.

Reading through the claims, however, not only suggest that this patent never should have gotten anywhere near being approved, but also raises serious questions about how Twitter infringes. What's patented sounds more like a community in which people compete to be recognized as leaders in specific fields. Twitter is just a communications platform -- it has very little of what's actually described in the claims of the patent. But for the regular patent system defenders in the crowd, can someone explain how this could possibly be seen as patentable? An interactive virtual community of famous people? Seriously?

Wokasch also points out that the "inventor" (and I use that term loosely) is a patent attorney himself. Amusingly, the copyright notice on his website says "Copyright 1999 - 2001" suggesting it's not updated very often.

Filed Under: celebrities, interactions, patents
Companies: twitter

Pointless Question Of The Week: Was Tunisia A 'Twitter' Or 'Wikileaks' Revolution?

from the dumb-question dept

Like many people, last week, I was paying attention to the events going on in Tunisia, mostly via following some Twitter feeds. However, we received a number of submissions and requests suggesting we write about the so-called "Twitter revolution" or "Wikileaks revolution." However, I think it's both silly and demeaning to try to diminish what's actually happening in Tunisia by trying to name what happened after one of the various elements that may have played a role in what's happening. We've seen this before. Over in Iran, of course, there was lots of talk about how Twitter "played a role" in the uprising, and it was then dismissed by people because things didn't really change (and it's arguable how much of a role it really played). Of course, as Clay Shirky has pointed out, new means of communication have certainly been useful in organizing political protests.

I didn't write anything about this last week, because it seemed that what was going on was too chaotic to actually know -- and the fact that people were jumping up and giving credit to Twitter or Wikileaks seemed more like an attempt to claim credit, when it was clearly way too early and way too nuanced to say. Thus, I tend to agree with folks like Jillian York, who says that it's simply way too early to understand the impact of Twitter or Wikileaks (if anything) on this event.

Furthermore, I'd argue that focusing on the role of either is silly and pointless. In the end, any sort of political uprising starts with the people involved. That they may use new tools of communication -- either with each other or the outside world -- is always interesting, and important to understand, but should never be considered the root underlying cause of the larger event. Ethan Zuckerman claims that Twitter can take "some credit" for the events "but not all of it," to which I would ask: in what political uprising can you ever claim that any one particular tool or technology deserves all of the credit. The world doesn't work that way. This isn't to diminish how either Twitter or Wikileaks might have world changing impacts (or have already), but trying to pigeonhole a much larger event into a bucket with a label would be a mistake.

Filed Under: tunisia
Companies: twitter, wikileaks

Courtney Love's Twitter Defamation Defense: 'Twitter Made Me Do It'

from the hmm... dept

It's been nearly two years since we first wrote about singer Courtney Love being sued for defamation over her Twitter messages mocking and attacking fashion designer Dawn Simorangkir. At the time, we noted that filing for defamation seemed like a pretty strong response, and it seemed like a better response would have been to either ignore the angry tweets, or to just lay out her own side of the story. However, after two years and apparently unsuccessful attempts at a settlement, the case is set to hit the court early next month, and it appears that some of Love's defense arguments will be interesting to watch.

First up, her lawyers will argue that the messages weren't defamatory. Considering she called Simorangkir a "nasty, lying, hosebag thief" with "a history of dealing cocaine" while having "lost all custody of her child" and, being guilty of "assault and burglary," one could make an argument that those statements could be seen as defamatory, if it turns out that the factual allegations are untrue. Of course, you could also argue that most people reading them wouldn't, in fact, believe that they were true, and would read them as just Courtney Love being Courtney Love and attacking someone she didn't like.

More interesting, however, is that Love's lawyers will argue that even if the messages were defamatory, there was no damage done. Simorankir is going to argue that the tweets ruined her fashion career, but that seems like it would be quite difficult to prove. Would people really believe Love's tweets on the subject to the point that Simorankir's entire fashion career was ruined? Seems like a stretch.

The most interesting (and least likely to succeed) line of defense is a sort of "Twitter made me do it" defense:

Love's attorneys have their own witnesses, including a medical expert who plans to testify that even if Love's statements were untrue, her mental state was not "subjectively malicious" enough to justify the defamation lawsuit.

That claim -- something akin to an insanity defense for social media -- suggests that Twitter was so appealing and addictive for Love that she had no appreciation for how the comments she posted would be received by others.

If that argument flies, I'd imagine that becomes the default argument any time anyone gets sued for what they say on Twitter.

Filed Under: courtney love, defamation
Companies: twitter

EU MPs Investigating US Info Snooping To See If It Violates EU Privacy Laws

from the whoops dept

Via Slashdot, we learn that a group of European MPs are apparently asking the European Commission to determine if the US government violated EU privacy rules with its attempt to get info from Twitter on various Wikileaks associates. We had already noted that Icelandic officials were upset with the US, since one of the accounts under investigation was an Icelandic Member of Parliament.

Of course, I have to say that as troubling as the US government's investigation appears to be, this particular response seems a little silly. The request for information was to a US company for info on US servers. That European users were involved really shouldn't much matter. Now, there is a somewhat silly "safe harbor" system that the Commerce Department has set up for American companies to get around the fact that the EU Privacy Directive forbids the transfer of personal info from Europeans to non-EU countries unless they have similar privacy laws (the US does not). However, I don't think the safe harbor would apply here either. This seems more like political grandstanding by some EU politicians against the US. I agree that there are problems with the investigation, but worrying about the EU privacy directive seems like a bit of a stretch.

Filed Under: eu, privacy, wikileaks
Companies: twitter, wikileaks

So Who Else Did The Government Demand Info From In The Wikileaks Investigation?

from the and-why-didn't-they-fight-it? dept

We've already pointed out that Twitter deserves serious praise for standing up to the government's gag order on an information request for some folks associated with Wikileaks. Others noticed the same thing. As Ryan Singel at Wired noted, Twitter beta tested a spine, and that sort of response should be standard. Singel (and some of our own commenters) also pointed out that Twitter was following in the footsteps of Nicholas Merrill, the head of Calyx Internet Access. Merrill, famously, fought a gag order on a National Security Letter he received from the FBI.

Still, as we pointed out in our original post on this, it should make you wonder who else got these gagged data requests from the feds and just rolled over and handed over the info. It appears that others are wondering this as well. There's quite a bit of speculation that both Facebook and Google likely received similar court orders (with similar gags included), and of course neither company will comment. Hopefully, in the future, they'll recognize from Twitter's lead that it's not just possible to stand up to these requests, but it's also a damn good idea.

Filed Under: government, privacy, searches
Companies: twitter

Kudos To Twitter For Not Just Rolling Over When The US Gov't Asked For Info

from the nice-to-see dept

While plenty of companies (*cough* AT&T *cough*), seem to bend over backwards to give the government more info than is required by law, it's nice to see that Twitter was willing to push back a bit. We've already covered the feds demand for info from Twitter concerning various folks associated with Wikileaks, but I wanted to do a separate post pointing out that it appears Twitter stood up and fought for its users' rights, when it could have easily just backed down. The details suggest that the court order was initially issued under seal on December 14th, giving Twitter just three days to hand over the info. Yet, last week, for unclear reasons, the magistrate judge allowed the seal to be removed, at which point Twitter reached out and notified the users, to see if they wanted to use the legal system to fight the demand for info (it appears most, if not all, are planning to do so). Lots of companies don't go nearly that far, so it's worth highlighting that Twitter appears to have gone above and beyond to protect its users' privacy. Of course, it also makes you wonder who else the feds issued similar orders to... and who just handed over the info.

Filed Under: privacy, wikileaks
Companies: twitter, wikileaks

The Mistakes The Government Made In Trying To Get Info From Twitter

from the not-this-again dept

Over the last month or so, we spent a lot of time going over the huge number of mistakes that the US government made in seizing a variety of domain names, supposedly for copyright infringement. Now, with the government seeking all sorts of info to build their legal case against Julian Assange and Wikileaks, it's time to look at the mistakes the government is making there as well. Following up on the news that came out late last week of the government seeking info from Twitter, Christopher Soghoian has done a nice job highlighting some of the details and problems with the court order, some of which seem reminiscent of the problems with the domain seizures -- meaning technical and legal errors, and a filing prepared by a rather surprisingly inexperienced government representative.

The 2703(d) order misspelled the names of one of the targets, Rop Gonggrijp. It also requested credit card and bank account numbers of several Twitter users, even though Twitter is a free service and so doesn't have such information (presumably someone at DOJ knows a little about Twitter, since the agency has 350,000 followers of its official Twitter account).

The Department of Justice prosecutor named in the order, Tracy Doherty-McCormick, was prosecuting online child exploitation cases just five months before the Twitter order was issued. Given that the wikileaks investigation is the most high-profile national security investigation of the decade, and that the court order seeks records associated with an Icelandic member of parliament, you would think that DOJ would assign this case to someone more senior.

He also notes that the government must realize that three of the individuals named are computer security experts who probably used pretty strong encryption, so it's unlikely this info will turn up much. Soghoian also points out the oddity of using this process to try to get info, as it would seem that there are much more reasonable ways that the government could request and get the same info.

I do wonder how much of these errors and sloppiness are due to basic rushing to try to get stuff done, or due to incompetence. Perhaps the government knows that it will get these kinds of things approved almost no matter what, so it doesn't even try. That might be the scariest scenario of all.

Filed Under: privacy
Companies: twitter

Feds Subpoena Twitter For Info On Wikileaks-Supporting Icelandic Politician

from the fishing-expedition dept

In the feds continued efforts to find something (anything!) to charge Wikileaks with, its latest fishing expedition apparently involves issuing a subpoena to Twitter asking for info on the account of Birgitta Jonsdottir, a Member of Iceland's Parliament, who had been instrumental in helping Wikileaks establish a strong free speech legal structure in Iceland. More recently, like many former Wikileaks' supporters, she has distanced herself from the operation, due to disagreements over Julian Assange's role in the organization. Apparently the subpoena is seeking everything she's done on Twitter since November 2009 (presumably including private direct messages). Given all the recent talk questioning whether or not private emails stored on third party servers are protected under the 4th Amendment, it does make you wonder if the same applies to private direct messages as well. Jonsdottir is apparently planning to fight the subpoena, so we may just find out...

Filed Under: birgitta jonsdottir, iceland, privacy, subpoena, wikileaks
Companies: twitter

As Expected, Court Tells AFP That Posting An Image On TwitPic Does Not Grant Anyone A License To Use It

from the can't-believe-this-case-went-forward dept

One of the more ridiculous lawsuits of 2010 involved AFP -- the big news organization that once sued Google claiming that merely linking to AFP news articles was copyright infringement. However, when it came to others' copyrighted works, AFP took a rather different position. After the Haitian earthquake a year ago, AFP got into a legal tussle with photographer Daniel Morel, who is based in Haiti.

The details and the series of mistakes that resulted in the lawsuit are long and convoluted, so you can read that link to go through all of the details (on both sides of the case), but the basic summary is that Morel posted his photos to TwitPic and announced them on Twitter. Someone else, a guy named Lisandro Suero, copied those photos and posted them to his own TwitPic account. AFP found the photos that Suero had posted, and got permission from Suero to use them (there's a dispute over whether or not AFP really knew the photos were Morel's when it did this). Morel contacted the AFP, pissed off about all of this, and demanded money. In response, AFP sued Morel pre-emptively, asking the court to issue a summary judgment that it did not infringe. AFP's initial line of reasoning was that Twitter's terms of service grant anyone a license to use any such content. This is (a) ridiculous (b) wrong and (c) totally irrelevant, because the photos were uploaded to TwitPic, not Twitter. Morel's initial response was equally ridiculous. He failed to note the difference between TwitPic and Twitter himself (initially), and attacked AFP for not doing its due diligence to find out who really took the photos. Yet, at the same time, he also argued that Twitter's terms of service shouldn't apply because he hadn't bothered to read them. It seems rather silly to claim in a lawsuit that the other party had a responsibility to go that extra step and research something, while at the same time claiming that your own failure to read something, meant you could ignore it.

We had assumed -- incorrectly! -- that once both sides actually learned of the many mistakes they had made that they would look to end the lawsuit as quickly as possible. However, we were amazed to find out that the AFP still wanted to push forward with its completely unwinnable argument that the terms of service granted anyone a license to use the photos, even though the plain language of the clause in question says exactly the opposite.

Thankfully, the court agreed that the case made no sense at all and AFP's arguments were a non-starter. It rejected AFP's attempt to dismiss Morel's countersuit and denied AFP's (original) request for summary judgment. One interesting part of the ruling, concerned a somewhat obscure part of the DMCA involving "copyright management information." The question was whether or not AFP misused this CMI in not taking the content that Morel had put on his Twitpic page, but not on the image itself. The court ruled that the information on the Twitpic page was sufficient as CMI, and the AFP not including that info represented a violation of section 1202. As Eric Goldman notes in his analysis, courts have varied on whether or not 1202 covers content not included in a work itself, so this is one more ruling to add to the pile on that issue.

All in all, it seems likely that AFP will finally just pay up and settle (ditto for all the downstream news orgs who used the photo via AFP and its partner Getty). Of course, I'm still curious why they all couldn't have claimed a "fair use" exception for "reporting," but perhaps that's another discussion for another day...

Filed Under: copyright, daniel morel
Companies: afp, twitpic, twitter

Would Twitter Be Liable For Links To Infringing Material?

from the questions,-questions,-questions dept

One of the issues that bothers many folks who pay attention to copyright issues is the growing belief by many copyright supporters that simply posting a link to copyright infringing material could itself be considered infringement. From a technical standpoint, this makes little sense. As you copyright geeks should know, US copyright law grants some specific "exclusive rights" to copyright holders in Section 106: to reproduce, to prepare derivative works, to distribute, to perform and to display (with some added specifics based on what kind of work it is). Still, I'm at a loss to figure out what linking to a work does? It's not reproducing the work. It's not preparing a derivative work. It's not distributing the work. It's not performing or displaying the work. So what part of copyright law does linking violate?

Anyway, the reason why I'm asking this now is that it appears that Twitter is suddenly getting swamped with DMCA takedown notices lately. I only discovered that after a recent TorrentFreak article about the top DMCA takedown senders as compiled by ChillingEffects.org. What struck me, in Wendy Seltzer's summary, was that she mentioned that the largest sources of DMCA takedowns are "Google, Yahoo, Digg, and most recently, Twitter."

The addition of Twitter struck me as odd. After all, how much copyright infringement can you do in 140 characters. Nearly two years ago, we had discussed the question of whether or not those "tweets" themselves could be copyrighted (which could lead to legal questions when people "retweet" your messages). We had trouble believing that fair use wouldn't apply to messages. Then, this past April, we had an interesting discussion after a guy named JP was upset that Twitter deleted a tweet of his that was merely a link to his own blog post, which discussed a new album that had leaked, and included (in the blog post, not on Twitter) a link to one song that was already widely being linked to on music blogs, including Pitchfork, as well as a link to Amazon where people could buy the album. The copyright holder had issued a DMCA takedown on the Twitter message, which we took to be an abuse of the DMCA process. Nothing in the tweet was infringing. Heck, you could argue that nothing on the blog post was infringing.

However, in looking down the list of DMCA notices to Twitter, the vast majority of them appear to be copyright holders complaining about tweets that link to their material hosted elsewhere. I did see one that involved a background image, which is a bit more understandable as a copyright issue, but I'm a bit troubled by the massive numbers of takedown messages solely on links. Why not just issue the takedowns on whoever is actually hosting the material? Targeting links just seems fraught with potential problems and it's still not at all clear to me that links, themselves, are really infringing.

Of course, it's likely that Twitter is removing the tweets in question in order to protect itself from liability. But I'm wondering if anyone actually thinks Twitter would be liable for copyright infringement if it didn't do that.

Filed Under: copyright infringement, dmca, dmca notices, links
Companies: twitter