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View Full Version : Tweeting: Interesting situation of a maybe lawsuit over tweets being used



LionDen
02-09-2013, 07:55 AM
Teri Buhl responds to Techdirt’s post

“Techdirt did not call me for comment about that story you followed this am [in the Morning Report] (http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20130203/18510621869/investigative-journalist-claims-her-public-tweets-arent-publishable-threatens-to-sue-blogger-who-does-exactly-that.shtml?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter),” writes Teri Buhl. (The Techdirt piece is headlined, “Investigative Journalist Claims Her Public Tweets Aren’t ‘Publishable;’ Threatens To Sue Blogger Who Does Exactly That.”)

“I finally reached the reporter early this am who says he is working at his day job and can’t update the story until he gets home. Then he won’t give me the info to directly reach a techdirt editor.”

http://i.imgur.com/XHPFIat.png

Buhl asked me to post her response:



My tweets were protected for a long time because I always looked at twitter as a conversation with my readers, not quotes, I’m not reporting news there. I can say silly things some times and I’d like to apologized for my knee jerk reaction to Gideon. Of course I can’t sue him/her because I don’t even know the person’s real name. This was a lesson in tweet protection for me. Asking fellow journos (or bloggers) not to publish my tweets is about a copyright issue for me. I make money off my words, research, and analysis as a journalist. I never print someone’s tweet in a story because 1) I didn’t get that comment from them directly 2) tweets can be changed and manipulated. I’ve never had another journo ignore that request. I think it’s ironic that a lawyer on his blog to promote his business choose to do it. Twitter says I own my tweets and I’m giving them license to use them but I simply don’t think that means I am giving others license. Of course it also depends on what the tweet is to prove I own the copyright.

As far as Mark Bennett (the lawyer blogger) – I would like to sue him and see how copyright law relating to tweets and photos in tweets would be tested. If can afford to do it I will. There is not a lot of case law for this in the U.S. I am not fan of aggregater sites who take journalist original work, screen grab it, and don’t link or credit back to the original reporting. It think that’s stealing page views and intellectual content.

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