It’s funny how people still view social media and digital distribution applications as little kids at the big media table. Granted, any new media is viewed that way by the established model for forever. Twitter has been in the middle of the most recent battle over content. It’s prominence in how people consume news has forced policies of all kind. None of those policies have stopped them from poaching content from others.
Maybe that will change now.
Reuters reported a finding by a judge in New York that a photographer should have been consulted by Agence France-Presse and The Washington Post before running an image posted on Twitter. Getty Images is also named in a similar suit but was not part of this particular ruling.
Packed away in the Terms of Service for Twitter is a clause that requires news organizations to get permission from non-employees before running whatever is posted. Twitter,”respects the intellectual property rights of others and expects users of the Services to do the same. Makes you wonder how any decision other than this could have ever been made.
These are the same organizations that force YouTube to take down content they didn’t authorize others to broadcast. What if you tried to make money off this content on your own site? You would have your domain seized by the federal government as well as any assets gained in the process.
Thankfully, someone had the courage to stand up and take back control of his own content. There should be some interesting implications regarding this outcome. We might even see this argued in the highest court in the land. Anyone with a blog, Twitter account or any other form of digital distribution should keep their eyes on this one. It will affect us all and hopefully let us control what we create.
Chris Murman 