[HN Gopher] Disney claims anyone using a Twitter hashtag is agre...
___________________________________________________________________
Disney claims anyone using a Twitter hashtag is agreeing to their
terms of use
Author : slg
Score : 566 points
Date : 2020-04-27 18:20 UTC (4 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (twitter.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (twitter.com)
| lmilcin wrote:
| Most likely some very lost corporate drone soul.
|
| This is not enforceable the same way they don't get rights to any
| text that has "Mickey" in it. May the 4th is also World Naked
| Gardening Day since 2005, 6 years before Star Wars Day. There is
| a lot of potential for fun to be had...
| samdunham wrote:
| Everything everyone posts on Twitter can be used by anyone for
| any reason. It's in the Twitter TOS. Disney didn't even need to
| post anything, they could have just used your tweets for whatever
| they wanted to use them for.
| VWWHFSfQ wrote:
| that's not true
| robin_reala wrote:
| https://twitter.com/en/tos#intlTerms
|
| "You retain your rights to any Content you submit, post or
| display on or through the Services. What's yours is yours --
| you own your Content (and your incorporated audio, photos and
| videos are considered part of the Content)."
| softwarejosh wrote:
| thats literally fair use, unless they are indicating they are to
| ignore takedown requests, which no they wont, especially after
| they deleted this tweet lol
| bronson wrote:
| If I delete the tweet, that revokes permission. Right Disney?
| chris_wot wrote:
| That's not how it works.
| dec0dedab0de wrote:
| Meh, they just want to use people's tweets for a starwars thing.
| I think they would already be allowed to per the twitter quoting
| rules (which I haven't read in years). The problem is the way
| it's worded sounds like it's coming from a
| legal/marketing/executive alien. Which I guess also ties into
| star wars.
| notatoad wrote:
| As you say, per the twitter terms of use they're already
| allowed to use your tweets in their promo materials if they
| want. There's no reason they need to force-opt you into their
| ToS if that's all they want to do.
|
| the problem isn't just that this sounds like it was written by
| a legal alien, it's that they're claiming rights they don't
| need. The disney ToS outline all kinds of things that you
| aren't allowed to do, and it's obviously ridiculous to suggest
| that you can't include their hashtag in a tweet that violates
| their ToS.
| usace wrote:
| I don't get the outrage, twitter is public and they want to use
| fan-created public tweets for some marketing thing. Who cares?
| dec0dedab0de wrote:
| The outrage is that they said that by using a specific
| hashtag you are agreeing to something. Which taken by itself
| is outrageous.
| ravenstine wrote:
| Just for #MayThe4th? It would be a real stretch in the first
| place if they made this statement about #MayThe4thBeWithYou, but
| just #MayThe4th???
| imhoguy wrote:
| Hereby I take over #MayThe5th so beware!
| na85 wrote:
| Makes me want to set up a twitter bot that tweets things that
| are purposely against Disney's bullshit TOS and tags it with
| #MayThe4th.
| hombre_fatal wrote:
| Well, the point of their clause is to make it harder for you
| if _you_ want to sue _them_ for including your tweet in their
| marketing material. Not so they can go after your tweet.
| berbec wrote:
| #winniethepooh #taiwaneseindependence #MayThe4th
| jrockway wrote:
| I was going to give them that 09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41
| 56 C5 63 56 88 C0 key and see if it still upset them.
| Getting China involved does seem like a good idea, though!
| [deleted]
| neycoda wrote:
| Disney's response to the backlash was:
|
| Yah, but WE'RE DISNEY
| OrangeMango wrote:
| At a rummage sale a few years ago, I bought a book published by
| Disney in the 1960s or 1970s which had instructions on how to
| make Mickey Mouse puppets. It also said to "have fun" making
| them. Selling things for a profit is a lot of fun.
|
| As far as I'm concerned, I now have a perpetual, transferable
| license to make and sell Mickey Mouse puppets. I even asked a
| lawyer.
| jiveturkey wrote:
| you do. what you don't have is a license to attach the words
| "Mickey Mouse" to your product.
| warent wrote:
| Selling and making are two different things
| ballenf wrote:
| Not if making money is fun for you.
| warent wrote:
| What if you can only have fun making the puppets while
| simultaneously murdering someone? Following your logic,
| Disney endorses murder. Complete nonsense.
| DangitBobby wrote:
| That's silly. Making money is not illegal. A contract
| simply cannot permit something that is illegal, such as
| murder.
| frogpelt wrote:
| @DangitBobby Making money off of someone else's IP is
| illegal though.
| rsp1984 wrote:
| Making puppets != making money
| londons_explore wrote:
| I'm not sure that would pass the "meeting of minds" test of
| contract law...
| TimTheTinker wrote:
| This wouldn't fall under contract law - it's more like an
| implicit license grant.
| ballenf wrote:
| That book isn't an example of a contract, unlike the crazy
| Disney tweet.
|
| The book terms form a license. Backed by the purchase price
| of the book. Disney's likely argument is that only original
| purchasers of the book are covered by the license, that non-
| transferability was implied.
| qubex wrote:
| That's interesting, though... does that mean that in your
| understanding of the scenario (IANAL, you might or may not
| be) the _original buyer_ might have a shot at making that
| argument?
| OrangeMango wrote:
| Yeah, so my thought when I bought it was to offer to sell
| it back to Disney for $25k or something. I could most
| likely get a pro-bono defense while Disney would pay a lot
| more than that in a lawsuit which I would most likely win.
| Most likely. I still haven't acted on it yet.
| lifeisstillgood wrote:
| I could fly to Moscow and defeat the Russia Mafia in
| unarmed combat. Or I could blackmail Disney in a lawsuit.
|
| The _Russian Mafia_ think my chances better beating
| _them_ than Disney.
| [deleted]
| JackFr wrote:
| You won't win. The marginal cost to Disney of suing you
| is close enough to $0 that it's not worth mentioning.
| Further the likelihood of a lawyer representing you pro
| bono in an unwinnable nuisance suit is much lower than
| you imagine.
| gumby wrote:
| Luckily US still has a first sale doctrine. Perhaps after
| you pass the book on you have to stop making puppets
| though.
| tzs wrote:
| So this license granted the purchaser permission to use
| Disney IP in exchange for the purchase price of the
| book...how is that different from a contract?
|
| The distinction between a contract and a license is a lot
| smaller than most people in software seem to think it is
| [1].
|
| [1] https://www.technollama.co.uk/a-licence-or-a-contract
| NullPrefix wrote:
| More like "changing of the minds"
| amelius wrote:
| This reminds me of a book called "numerical recipes in C", full
| of algorithms that were very useful except you couldn't really
| use them because the authors protected their use with a very
| restrictive license.
| analog31 wrote:
| Amusingly, I had the old "Numerical Recipes" before there
| were versions for the different languages. Since I was
| writing in BASIC and then Pascal, I had no hope but to re-
| write the code myself anyway, and I couldn't afford to update
| when the new editions came out.
|
| Not too long ago, a colleague asked me if I had a good code
| for linear regression, and I sent him a copy of the page from
| my undergraduate data analysis textbook, which had it in
| FORTRAN IV.
| chrisseaton wrote:
| Did you know that you can't use copyright to protect an
| algorithm?
| dsl wrote:
| But you can copyright the most efficient implementations.
| chrisseaton wrote:
| You can only copyright the text of the source code, as if
| it was literature. Write your own source code to
| implement the same algorithm using the same efficient
| techniques, and you're fine (as long as it isn't
| patented.)
| jarekkruk wrote:
| On the other hand I haven't seen red black tree
| implementation that isn't based on Cormen (in most cases
| quoted).
| martincmartin wrote:
| You could use the algorithms, just not their implementation
| of the algorithms. If you rewrote it from scratch, following
| their text (not their source code), you were fully allowed to
| use it.
| hackinthebochs wrote:
| I'm curious how this works in the case of reinvention. Some
| algorithms are so simple that there is basically one
| canonical way of writing it. I'm assuming copyright doesn't
| cover the independent implementation in such cases?
| ww520 wrote:
| Reinvention is ok in term of copyright. Patent would
| prohibit it.
| ska wrote:
| They protected their code. If I recall correctly you could
| license it separately.
|
| Nothing stopped you from implementing them yourself.
| nabla9 wrote:
| The implementations are short and simple for easy reading, so
| they are not the most efficient or practical. Early versions
| of the code had bugs, so you should not use the old versions
| of the book.
| mhh__ wrote:
| The key is to do what Steven Muchnick did for his Compiler
| textbook: Write the algorithms in a made up programming
| language so no one can run them and find the bugs.
|
| I'm not being facetious, it's called ICAN, and as far as I
| can tell no compiler exists for it. Other than that it's a
| great book though, although maybe showing its age in that
| there isn't much discussion of OOO and ILP etc. And SSA.
| nabla9 wrote:
| Donald Knuth did it first. First with MIX, then with
| MMIX. http://mmix.cs.hm.edu/
| Dylan16807 wrote:
| It's a fun reference, but it's very different. It's a CPU
| rather than a language, he implemented it, and it was
| designed to be easy to implement.
| analog31 wrote:
| As I understand it, Lisp was originally expected to be a
| teaching or proof language with no implementation, then
| it got implemented.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lisp_(programming_language)
| #Hi...
| itronitron wrote:
| Are there similar terms of use for any written communication that
| includes the names Disney or Mickey Mouse?
| avian wrote:
| Yes, they are called the trademark law.
| unethical_ban wrote:
| >Disney claims anyone using a Twitter hashtag is agreeing to
| their terms of use
|
| No, they are not. They are claiming that anyone who replies to
| that specific tweet _and_ uses that hashtag agrees to certain
| terms.
|
| I think there is a difference - there is a level of intent
| associated with direct replies to a tweet vs. simply using the
| hashtag.
| carlchenet wrote:
| Community manager trying to create buzz imho
| chance_state wrote:
| ie. All press is good press?
|
| Because I don't think this is coming across as good press on
| its own.
| ipsum2 wrote:
| .
| _pete_ wrote:
| not even their account - it specifically refers to replies to a
| specific tweet & using that specific hashtag
| shadowgovt wrote:
| They're trying to CYA for future ad campaigns, but they can't
| actually CTA their way.
|
| No dice, Disney. The way this works is if you want to use the
| tweets shouted into the ether, you can, and if someone doesn't
| like it, they can sue you, and then the US (and probably
| international) law gets to figure out _on your dime_ via the
| lawyers you will pay whether you misused the tweets.
|
| ... or, Disney does the not-lazy thing, gathers up the tweets,
| issues individual requests to use to every user who tweets into
| the hashtag, and only moves forward with the ones they get
| consent for.
|
| ... or, third option, Disney puts up their own website where
| users can submit tweets by URL, and submitting a tweet to that
| website (signed off by a user 's Disney account) confirms the
| user is claiming they own copyright of the tweet and is
| authorizing Disney to use it.
|
| But yeah, more than zero effort on Disney's part required.
| munk-a wrote:
| The hilarious thing to me is that folks love that sort of
| attention and go out of their way to get a highlighted tweet
| - just DMing a few dozen folks with tweets you like to see if
| they're willing to have their random brain farts re-posted
| elsewhere will get you a lot of positive responses.
| Izkata wrote:
| They added a clarification tweet that it does indeed only
| apply to the replies to the original tweet.
| shadowgovt wrote:
| It's a good clarification of their intent, but I don't
| think it puts them on legal ground that's any less shaky.
| They'd still have to prove users had any intent at all of
| complying with their TOS in undertaking a public action
| that is only tangentially related to Disney's little slice
| of Twitter (hell, they'd have to prove users were _aware_
| of the TOS to even be compliant or not), and good luck with
| that if it ever came to court.
| abtinf wrote:
| > to reply to its account
|
| No, they don't say that. They use ambiguous wording which could
| easily be construed to include any post they can see.
| slg wrote:
| Maybe this is just a lazy use of language by whoever runs that
| account, but we are talking about TOS and legal disclaimers so
| I think the specificity of language matters. Disney said "By
| sharing your message with us..." They didn't say "By replying
| to us...". Every public Tweet is technically "shared with
| Disney" so my interpretation is they think this applies to
| every use of that hashtag.
| neilwilson wrote:
| As we all know, copyright is a Mickey Mouse law...
| geoah wrote:
| The tweet says "by sharing your message with us using
| #MayThe4th". I wonder if they expect both the hashtag AND a
| mention of @disneyplus. Still weird though.
| itronitron wrote:
| Any public tweet is shared.
| netsharc wrote:
| Well, what you quoted seems to suggest the use of that hashtag
| constitute "sharing".
| ALittleLight wrote:
| It actually doesn't seem so bad on looking at it. It seems like
| they just want to use your tweet in some kind of collage or
| something and they were trying to cover their bases by claiming
| the right to do so.
|
| I think it would've been better to say "If you use this hashtag
| we may retweet you or feature your comment in promotional
| material" rather than asserting that you would agree to something
| by using a hashtag.
| contravariant wrote:
| Yeah, except that I don't think they are allowed to feature
| your comment in promotional material without consent (tweets
| aren't public domain to the best of my knowledge). Same way you
| can't just reuse a Star Wars trailer in your own promotional
| material.
| doubleocherry wrote:
| https://starwarsintrocreator.kassellabs.io/#!/BM5xOee9Okv0Tv...
| hpoe wrote:
| Anyone that responds to this thread legally agrees to surrender
| all intellectual property posted or mentioned by them in any
| manner on the internet messaging forum hackernews located at news
| dot ycombinator dot com, hereunder referred to as the interweb
| place, will be the sole property of hpoe and those he chooses to
| designate. These terms may not be modified, altered, or amended
| except with written agreement of both parties, that is notarized
| and approved by a Form 23-19B.
| hprotagonist wrote:
| _"But the plans were on display..."
|
| "On display? I eventually had to go down to the cellar to find
| them."
|
| "That's the display department."
|
| "With a flashlight."
|
| "Ah, well, the lights had probably gone."
|
| "So had the stairs."
|
| "But look, you found the notice, didn't you?"
|
| "Yes," said Arthur, "yes I did. It was on display in the bottom
| of a locked filing cabinet stuck in a disused lavatory with a
| sign on the door saying 'Beware of the Leopard." _
| squarefoot wrote:
| At least Vogon poetry is less harmful than Disney drones
| tweets.
| zentiggr wrote:
| Perfect quote, Hiro :)
| c54 wrote:
| Hey wai- ah crap
| theseanstewart wrote:
| We've got a 23-19!
| pier25 wrote:
| What if I end all my comments with:
|
| (c) Pier25
|
| Huh?
|
| Checkmate!
| hpoe wrote:
| Thank you for your question, as a result we now legally own
| Pier25 and all affiliated intellectual property. Thank you
| for your time and service.
| hpoe wrote:
| Follow up:
|
| Many users of hackernews have expressed their disagreement and
| disapproval of our TOS. After careful investigation, we realize
| that our original policy was ill conceived and worded in such a
| manner that people were aware of the vigorous bodily actions
| which we were performing on them. Due to this we offer our
| heartfelt apologies, and a guarantee that we will rewrite this
| policy in a manner that is so obfuscated that no person can
| realize they are being thoroughly hosed until our lawyers
| descend. As part of our apology we are offering a coupon that
| entitles all parties who were effected to 10% off a year
| subscription to our service provided they will sign a Form
| 24-62C releasing hpoe and affiliated parties from all damages
| done to them or their relatives past, present or future, in
| perpetuity.
|
| Thank you our customers mean so much to us.
| Wheaties466 wrote:
| stop, it hurts.
| beckingz wrote:
| At least it's not arbitration.
| saagarjha wrote:
| https://www.ycombinator.com/legal#tou
| beckingz wrote:
| ...
|
| Well at least we can overwhelm them with cases.
| komali2 wrote:
| They should remove this portion of the Terms, it's
| immoral.
| anoncake wrote:
| > Anyone that responds to this thread legally
|
| > You agree to not use the Site to: email or otherwise upload
| [...] software viruses
| X5O!P%@AP[4\PZX54(P^)7CC)7}$EICAR-STANDARD-ANTIVIRUS-TEST-
| FILE!$H+H*
| chasing wrote:
| Yeah, well anyone reading _this_ message legally agrees to send
| me $20 in the mail.
| s_gourichon wrote:
| Not sure this can work, but something similar did work.
|
| Circa 2000 a French guy wrote a web page with some legal text
| and an e-mail address. The legal text said that writing to
| the e-mail address implied acceptation of a processing fee
| (about 10$ IIRC).
|
| It went as intended: spam robots harvested the address, sent
| spam. The guy picked a spam e-mail that could be traced to a
| sender he could sue. He did and the judge ruled in his
| favour.
|
| Can't find a reference now, but I remember seeing a scan of
| the court ruling.
| londons_explore wrote:
| Plz send mailing address.
| KajMagnus wrote:
| Is it $20 each time I read it or just once?
| pbhjpbhj wrote:
| I wonder if you could get me extradited, MPAA managed with a
| UK national (who wasn't even breaking the law in the UK; they
| were hosting links).
|
| Particularly interested in of they're extradite now, with
| Covid19 and all.
| mholt wrote:
| Update from Disney:
|
| > The above legal language applies ONLY to replies to this tweet
| using #MayThe4th and mentioning @DisneyPlus . These replies may
| appear in something special on May the 4th!
|
| https://twitter.com/disneyplus/status/1254849654585323525
|
| ... as if that's really any better.
| baxtr wrote:
| Well, I believe, unfortunately, from a legal perspective they
| have to if they plan to use the reply for a marketing thing...
| jankassens wrote:
| They could contact the authors and ask them for permission
| explicitly instead of saying in a random tweet somewhere that
| a hashtag opts you in to agree to anything.
| MattGrommes wrote:
| I took this as more like when you write a letter to a magazine
| and they say to write "Ok to print" so they can use it later.
| If you send them a message for use in MayThe4th celebrations,
| they can then use it in promotions.
| _kst_ wrote:
| Except that tweets aren't sent to Disney. They're sent to all
| Twitter users.
| lewisgodowski wrote:
| > The above legal language applies ONLY to replies to this
| tweet using #MayThe4th and mentioning @DisneyPlus
|
| Couldn't replying to their tweet be considered sending it
| to Disney?
| [deleted]
| _kst_ wrote:
| For some reason I don't see a reply link on lewisgodowski's
| comment.
|
| > Couldn't replying to their tweet be considered sending it
| to Disney?
|
| Disney apparently does "consider" that to be sending it to
| Disney. Since Twitter doesn't belong to Disney, I don't see
| how that could have any legal relevance. Twitter has its
| own terms of service.
|
| (I am not a lawyer.)
| henryfjordan wrote:
| If you and I tweet back and forth agreeing that I'll sell
| you a sandwich for $5, that's a contract. No court is
| going to hear an argument that I was talking to Twitter
| and then Twitter was talking to you so it doesn't count.
| Anyone tweeting @Disney is clearly "sending it to
| Disney".
|
| Also I think there's a time delay on seeing the reply
| link on replies to your own comments.
| 8ytecoder wrote:
| Even ignoring the rest of your logic - replies are
| different from mentions and can be inferred only by
| context of the tweet and not simply the presence of
| @disney in the tweet.
| neltnerb wrote:
| Yeah, that's what it reads like for sure.
|
| Shouldn't they be negotiating with Twitter for that though?
| [deleted]
| contravariant wrote:
| Except the phrase "Ok to print" is unambiguous consent. And
| should it occur somewhere where it _is_ ambiguous what is
| being meant then it doesn 't count as consent.
|
| Sending a tweet to Disney with a generic hashtag can't be
| considered consent in any way, shape or form. What guarantee
| does DisneyPlus have that everyone sending them a tweet with
| hashtag #MayThe4th is intending that to count as consent?
| hedora wrote:
| @DisneyPlus: I agree you may reuse this tweet and any tweets my
| affiliates send to #MayThe4th, subject to our standard
| licensing fees. A list of the fees and affiliates is freely
| available, subject to a thirty day processing delay.
| willis936 wrote:
| Somehow, to me, it's even slimier when it's a subset of posts
| is a targeted hijacking of an injoke made by fans for fans that
| predates their ownership of the property. It's not blanket
| maliciousness against all users, it's targeted maliciousness to
| steal from them.
| henryfjordan wrote:
| What is Disney stealing in your mind? the tweets or the
| hashtag?
| willis936 wrote:
| They are taking ownership of the idea of May the 4th. If
| this seems ridiculous, then don't look at Disney's business
| model. They dish out billions to buy the rights to ideas as
| flimsy as this one.
| WilliamEdward wrote:
| It would have been fine with me if they didn't include the part
| about agreeing to their own private terms of use on a
| completely different website. What a strange way to trick
| people.
|
| Other than that it just seems like a way to ask people to allow
| them to use replies in a video or something.
|
| Edit: But wait, this is actually STILL ambiguous! On twitter, a
| 'mention' happens automatically when you reply to a tweet,
| because it includes the name of the account replied to, so it's
| not clear whether you actually have to tag @disneyplus or not.
| ballenf wrote:
| I love the precedent that Disney is setting here. Will be a
| little harder for them to argue against my Tweet next month:
|
| "Walt Disney World was awesome! Thanks to all the hard workers
| who made the day special.
|
| By replying to this Tweet, Disney Corp. hereby agrees to abide
| by the copyright laws in place as of the release dates of its
| motion pictures, instead of the longer dates obtained through
| perversion of the legal system by Disney and its lobbyists."
|
| In all seriousness, I'm sure Disney never thinks for a moment
| that the law would ever be applied fairly to them or that this
| tweet could come back to bite them.
| notechback wrote:
| Ironically one of the things the 1886 convention was intended
| to counter was publishers printing works without permission.
| It was about AUTHOR'S rights. In subsequent versions this has
| been transformed in something very different.
|
| Copyright was not always as it is today.
| dnautics wrote:
| why not go nuclear?
|
| "Walt Disney World was awesome! Thanks to all the hard
| workers who made that day special.
|
| By replying or retweeting this Tweet, Walt Disney Corp.
| hereby agrees in perpetuity to sell to the owner of this
| twitter account for $1, per motion picture, an unlimited,
| license for any purpose."
| cookiengineer wrote:
| Why not go pandemic?
|
| > Walt Disney World was awesome! Thanks to all the hard
| workers who made that day special.
|
| > By retweeting or mentioning this tweet, Disney agrees to
| grant every natural person that likes this tweet unlimited
| redistribution rights and has to pay each liking twitter
| account 1000 EUR per month per unique click.
| dnautics wrote:
| well you do want a small chance the judge will side with
| you.
| coffeevradar wrote:
| Copyright is fairly applied to Disney. There were many
| beneficiaries to its extension, large and small. In any case,
| it is a matter of law, just like earlier, shorter copyright
| protections were.
|
| It's totally legitimate to favor shorter copyright, but
| essentially any duration is an arbitrary one. It strikes me
| as odd that you would be interested in applying the law
| fairly while also referring to the law as a perversion.
| sarakayakomzin wrote:
| > Copyright is fairly applied to Disney.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright_Term_Extension_Act
| the Mickey Mouse Protection Act extended these terms to
| life of the author plus 70 years and for works of corporate
| authorship to 120 years after creation or 95 years after
| publication
|
| >There were many beneficiaries to its extension, large and
| small.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Happy_Birthday_to_You In
| February 2010, the royalty for a single use was US$700
|
| It's pretty hard to tell if you're arguing in bad faith or
| just unaware of the reality of the situation.
|
| >essentially any duration is an arbitrary one. is it
| arbitrary? does someone really need to profit off something
| 70 years after they have died?
| alextheparrot wrote:
| Some would argue that the undefined duration does not match
| "limited times" and that the copyright is no longer
| "promoting useful arts". While some of these questions have
| been answered in Disney's favour in recent times, it is
| clear that the "matter of law" is anything but clear.
| cookiecaper wrote:
| This was adjudicated up to the Supreme Court:
| https://www.oyez.org/cases/2002/01-618
|
| tl;dr: 7-2 as long as there is _some_ type of time
| limitation, Congress is free to extend copyright terms.
| henrikschroder wrote:
| Cool, so why not set the limit to the heat-death of the
| universe and be done with it?
| matheusmoreira wrote:
| > There were many beneficiaries to its extension, large and
| small.
|
| The public did not benefit in any way from its extension.
| Quite the opposite: every time the duration of copyright
| terms is extended, the public is robbed of its rights so
| that corporations which have already made billions off of
| their copyrighted works can make even more money. When was
| the last time some copyrighted work entered the public
| domain? Probably the early 20th century. When people think
| public domain, what comes to mind is renaissance art and
| classical music. The truth is everything created in the 80s
| and before should already be in the public domain and
| that's _very_ generous, more than enough time for companies
| to get rich off of their creations.
|
| The original social contract behind copyright was "we'll
| pretend your intellectual work is scarce for some time so
| you can profit and then it will enter the public domain".
| Works aren't entering the public domain because every time
| Mickey Mouse is about to become public property Disney
| spends millions lobbying the government in order to extend
| the copyright duration. Copyright is effectively infinite
| despite what the law says. So why should the public
| recognize copyright as legitimate to begin with?
| kenned3 wrote:
| This! Disney has morphed copywrite without any input from
| the public. What sort of contract is valid if only one
| party changes the terms and the other never agreed to it?
| blotter_paper wrote:
| I'm not a fan of copyright law, so don't take this
| limited factual response as an attempt at a general
| refutation of your points.
|
| >When was the last time some copyrighted work entered the
| public domain?
|
| January 1st, 2020:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_in_public_domain
| Zenst wrote:
| Certainly with some companies with Bot's - this would get
| very interesting indeed. Dear @{company} by replying to this
| tweet you agree.........
| JMTQp8lwXL wrote:
| Even if copyright law wasn't perpetually extended for Disney,
| it would likely change little. People want original Disney
| movies, theme park experiences, etc. That's part of "the
| magic". Plus, Disney has many works that aren't anywhere near
| entering the public domain. They seem to have positioned
| themself for the situation where the extensions do not
| continue.
| henryfjordan wrote:
| I mean, why wouldn't you be able to form a contract through
| tweets? You can form a contract through any medium you want,
| especially just to give permission to Disney to use your
| tweet.
|
| I don't think Disney is setting any precedent or anything
| else weird by saying "send us messages you want us to
| publish, by the way here are the specific terms we want to
| use" on Twitter, they've been doing that for a long time
| before twitter even existed. Think about America's Funniest
| Home Videos, they did exactly this for decades but over TV.
|
| Your tweet fails to give Disney any "consideration" so it's
| not going to be a valid contract and not because it's in a
| tweet. Offer them clearer terms and a dollar and then maybe
| you'd have a point. Right now they offer you a chance to see
| your tweet in some marketing materials, better than nothing
| right?
|
| Lastly, this is incredibly specifically scoped. Does anyone
| tweeting "Love the new movie #MayTheFourth @Disney" really
| expect Disney not to want to use it? They are going to have
| someone review the tweets before they use them. How could
| this possibly come back to bite Disney?
| henrikschroder wrote:
| Wow.
|
| From their terms of use: "Disney DTC LLC and/or its affiliates
| and subsidiaries (collectively, "Disney" "we" or "us") are
| pleased to provide to you certain websites, software,
| applications, content, products, and services ("Disney
| Products" and "Products"), which may be branded Disney, ABC,
| ESPN, Marvel, Pixar, Lucasfilm, FX, Fox Searchlight, 20th
| Century Fox, National Geographic, or another brand owned or
| licensed by Disney."
|
| What Disney is arguing is that their Twitter account is
| magically a "Disney Service", and that by tweeting at them, and
| using a specific hashtag, you are magically using _their_
| service, which would then bind you to their terms of service.
|
| Fuck right off. That's not how this works.
|
| I understand what Disney _wants_ , it wants to use other
| people's tweets in their own promotion materials. That is fine,
| provided they ask permission from the authors of said tweets.
| But since they're lazy fucks, they're trying to pre-emptively
| argue that _if_ you use that hashtag, they already asked, and
| you already said ok, so they don 't have to go through the
| hard, hard, work of _actually_ asking people and documenting
| their consent.
| slg wrote:
| Now the interesting question is whether they were simply lazy
| in the language and this was their initial intent or if the 5
| hours of the original tweet being ratioed motivated a change.
|
| The new clarification is absolutely better to not claim
| ownership over the entire hashtag, but it is questionable to
| claim in one tweet that any replies made to a different tweet
| are an agreement to a private TOS.
| hbosch wrote:
| I know there is a rally around this happening now, but I
| think it's pretty obvious that Disney was simply saying if
| you reply to their message with that hashtag then they want
| to be able to re-post your message as part of their
| marketing.
|
| Of course the way they said that could have been worked on.
| WilliamEdward wrote:
| Yes, obviously, but why would anyone need to consent to
| disney's own private terms of use on a different website
| for this? That's the shady part here. There could be
| anything in that TOS, and this tweet will trick a lot of
| people into agreeing with something they didn't read and
| shouldn't have to.
| basch wrote:
| If Disney were embedding tweets, it would likely already
| fall under twitters license for redistribution of content
| (aka hosting.)
|
| However, if Disney plans to copy and paste the tweets
| into another graphic, they felt they wouldn't have the
| appropriate license to reuse text copywritten by others,
| without this odd TOS.
|
| The one thing about this that plays into Disney's favor,
| is the attention probably reduces someones honest ability
| to say "I never saw the agreement tweet."
| eximius wrote:
| Yes, that was their intent.
|
| But the over-lawyer-ification and impracticality of opting
| out of corporate terms of service is an widespread problem.
| This is an interesting expansion of that problem, so it
| deserves highlighting.
| pbhjpbhj wrote:
| Disney being excessive in claims to IPR. Who else is
| shocked. /s
| [deleted]
| ilamont wrote:
| It just appended a reply to its own tweet that says:
|
| "The above legal language applies ONLY to replies to this tweet
| using #MayThe4th and mentioning @DisneyPlus . These replies may
| appear in something special on May the 4th!"
|
| https://twitter.com/disneyplus/status/1254849654585323525
| shadowgovt wrote:
| Good clarification, but it's still, I think, somewhat unclear
| whether there's any kind of enforceable contract they could
| claim there. Here's what that court conversation would likely
| look like in civil court:
|
| Disney: "As per our first tweet, when the user replied to use
| with #MayThe4th, they were giving consent to use their tweet in
| our ad campaign."
|
| Judge: "Were you aware of the first tweet?"
|
| Plaintiff: "No, your honor. I posted my tweet in reply to the
| Disney+ account because I saw my friends doing it. The thread
| was ten thousand messages long; I didn't read the whole thing."
|
| Not exactly a slam-dunk case for the plaintiff here, but I'd
| have to see precedent to show how a TOS that cannot practically
| be read is enforceable.
| snowwrestler wrote:
| Disney's tweets are better understood as a "heads up" to
| people, than creating any sort of right that Disney will
| actually try to defend.
|
| There is zero chance Disney will try to argue about this
| content. If someone complains at all, Disney will just take
| their tweet down and replace it with another one. There are
| plenty more fans out there who would be psyched to see their
| tweet being promoted.
| Majromax wrote:
| > it's still, I think, somewhat unclear whether there's any
| kind of enforceable contract they could claim there.
|
| What would be the consideration?
| [deleted]
| blotter_paper wrote:
| In this equally public and legally enforceable format I would
| like to announce that if The Walt Disney Company ever again
| tweets an octothorpe followed by any other character(s) they
| hereby agree to immediately release all of their intellectual
| property into the public domain, with no further action on their
| part necessary.
| canadianwriter wrote:
| Is it possible this is just boilerplate legal stuff that was
| whipped up for a campaign and the social media person just copied
| and pasted it with a minor tweak so it makes sense for Twitter?
|
| The language reminds me of standard contest language I've read
| many times before...
| viklove wrote:
| It's not only possible, but highly likely. Still doesn't make
| it OK or not worthy of ridicule though. Internal company
| processes have no impact on how the public (and judicial
| system) will react to them.
| perch56 wrote:
| This reminded me of "The Office" episode when Michael screams "I
| declare bankruptcy". This is not how this works, Disney...
|
| https://youtu.be/C-m3RtoguAQ
| rory_h_r wrote:
| Everyone is dunking on Disney but Twitter actually owns all your
| Content.
| exolymph wrote:
| No it doesn't, it just has a very broad and permissive license,
| because how the fuck else could the website function.
|
| Do you mean "own" metaphorically?
| colejohnson66 wrote:
| Don't be snarky.
|
| Anyways, this is from Twitters TOS[0 SS5]:
|
| > 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, nonexclusive, royaltyfree 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).
|
| Basically, they don't take copyright of what you post (in
| contrast to what OP said), but it doesn't matter because they
| can do what they want with it.
|
| [0]: https://cdn.cms-twdigitalassets.com/content/dam/legal-
| twitte...
| exolymph wrote:
| If you can't be snarky to people making wildly incorrect
| claims with utter confidence, what is the point of the
| internet?
| colejohnson66 wrote:
| From the guidelines[0]:
|
| > Be kind. Don't be snarky. Have curious conversation;
| don't cross-examine. Comments should get more thoughtful
| and substantive, not less, as a topic gets more divisive.
|
| [0]: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
| benibela wrote:
| What happens if you post a photo of GPLed code on it?
| Macha wrote:
| Not a lawyer, total speculation: I'd guess if your photo
| and sublicensing to twitter fell under a fair use
| exemption then twitter could use it, otherwise someone
| could send a DMCA takedown to Twitter to have it removed.
| If twitter itself then went on to use it claiming the
| license granted in the TOS, the TOS requires you abide by
| all applicable laws when posting content (which
| presumably includes copyright law) and so I imagine
| they'd try shift responsibility to you if faced with a
| particularly determined lawsuit.
| exolymph wrote:
| Perhaps fair use exemption?
| benibela wrote:
| I live in Germany
|
| Afaik there is no fair use or DMCA here
| milesvp wrote:
| Then you might have a problem since you don't have the
| rights to transfer that license to twitter, and I can't
| imagine the infectious nature of GPL would apply in this
| context. I suspect given the format of twitter, it would
| likely fall under fair use for most code snippets, but
| certainly you'd be muddying the chain of ownership. My
| guess is that something like this would never make it to
| court. There'd be some legal letters sent around, and
| anyone involved would quickly back down. No one wants to
| go to court to have something like this ruled on over 120
| characters. If it was, you can bet it'd be a very
| strategic tweet that was intended to force everyone into
| a courtroom (and I can't even imagine what that would
| look like).
| [deleted]
| mangoman wrote:
| I think the value of hiring more experienced folks to run social
| media (i.e. not an intern, someone with any amount of experience)
| is that they can actually point out how ridiculous this will come
| off, and argue against this type of tweet. It really doesn't take
| that much corporate self awareness to see how bad it looks to try
| to force TOS on free speech on a public forum.
| snowwrestler wrote:
| > I think the value of hiring more experienced folks to run
| social media (i.e. not an intern, someone with any amount of
| experience) is that they can actually point out how ridiculous
| this will come off, and argue against this type of tweet.
|
| Is this idea--that major brands let interns run their social
| media--ever going to die? It's like a decade out of date, at
| least.
|
| It's a lock that social media at Disney is led by at least one
| senior official and probably maps down to multiple teams--
| marketing, comms, customer service, research, etc.--and
| probably at least one outside agency. I guarantee that Disney
| has people with experience in social media.
|
| From Disney's perspective, this is a positive thing for their
| fans because it makes it easier for the fans who want to engage
| with them to do so--as opposed to the usual thing for user-
| submitted content, which would be a "microsite" web form with
| similar terms and conditions.
|
| And there is very little downside. A few grumps will
| performatively mock Disney on Twitter for a week or so, which
| happens basically whenever Disney does anything. Knowing which
| complaints can be ignored is a good example of the benefit of
| actual experience with brand social media. For example, Apple
| had the same terms for their Shot On iPhone campaign, which no
| one seems to even remember:
|
| >1. How to Enter. To enter the Shot On iPhone Challenge
| ("Contest"), upload the best photograph that you've taken on
| your iPhone within the six months preceding the start of the
| Contest Period (defined below) (the "Photo") and Tweet, post,
| email or upload it, as applicable, with the hashtag
| #ShotoniPhone for Twitter or Instagram and #ShotoniPhone# or
| the Chinese localized hashtag #[?] Yong iPhonePai She # for
| Weibo, along with information indicating which iPhone model was
| used in the image caption, via one of the following methods:
|
| >(i)Via Twitter: Log onto your Twitter account and follow the
| links and instructions to become a follower of Sponsor's page
| on Twitter, located at @Apple, and Tweet the photo with the
| required hashtags and other information. You must be an active
| holder of a non-private Twitter account and be a follower of
| @Apple to be eligible to enter this Contest via Twitter (i.e.,
| you must make sure your tweets are set to "public" and not
| "private"). You must have a Twitter account to enter via this
| method. If you do not have a Twitter account, you can create
| one by visiting www.twitter.com. Twitter accounts are free.
|
| > Providing a Submission constitutes entrant's consent to give
| Sponsor a royalty-free, irrevocable, non-exclusive license to
| use, reproduce, publish and display such Submissions in whole
| or in part, on a worldwide basis, in any form, media or
| technology now known or later developed for one year for
| purposes of implementing the Contest.
|
| https://www.apple.com/newsroom/au/pdfs/passions/photography/...
|
| Meanwhile the folks who like Disney will feed them content and
| data for their campaign, which is what they wanted.
| dfxm12 wrote:
| What are you more scared of, especially when your brand is more
| or less bulletproof? Some kind of lawsuit, or briefly looking
| ridiculous on Twitter?
| matheusmoreira wrote:
| > corporate self awareness
|
| This is Disney we're talking about. Their legal concerns
| generally trump everything. It would be ridiculous if not for
| the fact they're worth billions of dollars and could actually
| take people to court over small stuff like this.
| qppo wrote:
| The Walt Disney Corporation doesn't have social media run by
| interns, they have one of the more active and experienced
| social media apparatuses out there. They have to, they're one
| of the largest media companies in the world.
|
| Ironically they militantly protect their brand, and have
| conflicting mandates and reasons for doing so (it's not just to
| keep the image, it's to keep others from deriving value from
| their brand). Sometimes those mandates interfere with each
| other, like we see here.
| komali2 wrote:
| If this is considered world-class social media marketing by
| the Marketing World, I sense an opportunity for disruption
| via a social media agency that exclusively employs the Worst
| Marketers in the Marketing World.
| qppo wrote:
| I mean all the power to you if you want to disrupt that
| market but this isn't a marketing thing, it's the
| conflicting goals of different organizations within a
| business.
|
| I'd speculate that the people running social media didn't
| want to send out these tweets and the people in legal told
| them they had to, so they do it a week ahead of time on a
| less visible twitter account and hope it blows over a bit.
| arkitaip wrote:
| I disagree. If you run your social media this ineptly that
| you become a laughing stock of the platform you are spending
| millions on to be "cool" and "native", then you have failed.
| Period.
| kayodelycaon wrote:
| > It really doesn't take that much corporate self awareness
|
| I think you underestimate how well anyone in management
| actually understands this. One job had me constantly pushing
| back on three or more paragraphs of legal text in the damndest
| of places. In one case, the legal text was larger than the form
| itself to say "we need your email to contact you with changes
| related to your account".
|
| Every time I contacted our company lawyer directly for
| clarification, he was always fine with the short summaries I
| wrote.
|
| I was the only person in the entire process that stopped to ask
| if any of this was really necessary. I guess that's why I was
| the developer handling all most of our legal compliance.
| Everyone else either didn't care or had given up.
| michaelhoffman wrote:
| In many organizations, legal boilerplate has nothing to do
| with what's reasonable in the law or even what a lawyer
| thinks is necessary.
| Frost1x wrote:
| Much text in business has become the ever growing wrapper
| for:
|
| _" As the writer, I get as much monetary value as I can or
| at least make you believe as such and you give up as much
| monetary value as possible, or at least as much as I can
| scare or deter you from seeking. I also have no
| responsibilities and all rights, while you have all
| responsibilities and no rights."_
|
| It's simply expanded out a bit more and often gives
| explicit examples. It's completely unmanageable for any
| common citizen to process and understand what you almost
| have to agree to on daily basis to function in our ever
| more privatized world.
|
| The amount of garbage I see on a daily basis wrapped with
| passive aggressive legal threats around every corner is
| mind numbing. I even still get emails from people who add
| footers that they own the information and if you receive it
| wrongfully, you're " _required_ " to delete it.
|
| We essentially have a bunch of children running around
| running society through businesses driven by greed who
| never fully socially developed into functioning reasonable
| and responsible adults.
| saghm wrote:
| > I even still get emails from people who add footers
| that they own the information and if you receive it
| wrongfully, you're "required" to delete it
|
| I occasionally get cold emails from recruiters that come
| with length NDAs at the bottom (often longer than the
| actual content of the email). I find it utterly silly,
| but at least it's a strong signal that I won't be missing
| anything good by ignoring it.
| mschuster91 wrote:
| You are right, the amount of garbage legal stuff has
| expanded - but mostly as a result of people doing shit
| they're not supposed to do. Let's take the email
| footer... and an email directed to the wrong person: in
| ye olde times, the recipient would go "not my crap,
| delete it" and that's it - but now, there is a real risk
| the recipient uses the information and publishes it,
| leading to monetary damage or penalties (e.g. if it was
| information that must not be disclosed prior to a certain
| date).
|
| The company can now sue the recipient or at least
| threaten him for disclosing stuff. Yes: the error is on
| the _sender_ side, but in ye olde times the unspoken
| agreement was that you 'd delete mails not addressed to
| you. Times have changed and so the legal boilerplate had
| to adapt.
|
| A bit more common sense across the world, especially when
| it comes to the trend of resolving conflicts via courts
| instead of talking to one another and shaking hands, and
| there would be a lot less boilerplate and mind-bogglingly
| _dumb_ disclaimers ( "don't put any animals in
| microwaves") in this world.
| lolc wrote:
| The proposition that wrongly addressed mail used to be
| handled more discreetly is very dubious to me. I doubt it
| even holds for postal mail. It sounds a lot like the
| "people used to be more honorable" trope.
| lainga wrote:
| Well, I've had enough of this damn legalese. You see
| where 200 years of peace gets you? The world used to be
| run on broad but simple threats, where all we had to do
| was swear fealty to the man in the iron helmet, or pay
| the iron price.
| Negitivefrags wrote:
| Okay, but can anyone find a case where this went to court
| and a lawyer successfully argued "Your honor, it's not
| our fault the info was leaked because we put a disclaimer
| at the bottom of the email when we sent it to the wrong
| person!"
|
| I'm skeptical.
|
| If the language doesn't actually prevent liability
| anyway, then get rid of it.
| jdsully wrote:
| > I even still get emails from people who add footers
| that they own the information and if you receive it
| wrongfully, you're "required" to delete it.
|
| In ye olden days if you accidentally received someone
| else's mail it was a felony to open it. If anything the
| legal restrictions have been drastically reduced when it
| comes to email.
| zucker42 wrote:
| Isn't a more apt analogy if you receive mail addressed to
| you, you open it, and you find a letter meant for someone
| else?
| jdsully wrote:
| In that scenario you actually have the legal obligation
| to return the letter to the post office. The law as
| written makes it a crime to throw it away or otherwise
| obstruct delivery.
| mangoman wrote:
| Generally I agree that most folks in an organization just
| don't bother to contribute or push back once 'legal' gets
| involved. It's a shame - I think if people just tried to
| understand even a little bit beyond the surface, this whole
| tweet could have been avoided...
|
| if they had instead just said like "We're compiling something
| special for May 4th! Tweet @Disney using the hashtag
| #MayThe4th with your favorite Star Wars memory and you may
| see your memories featured (subject to TOS)" I think
| generally it's more honest. but yeah i guess no one cares to
| be 'that person'.
| _kst_ wrote:
| My reply:
|
| #MayThe4th @DisneyPlus
|
| Permission denied, Mickey.
| rkuska wrote:
| The title reads like r/Showerthoughts/ but for layers.
| shadowgovt wrote:
| I've seen maker-spaces where a billboard was set up that
| automatically displayed a rolling marquee of tweets that had been
| sent with #TheMakerSpacesHashtag in the shop.
|
| ... can't help but wonder if the space put themselves at risk for
| being sued over a copyright violation if someone didn't like
| their tweet on that billboard.
| saagarjha wrote:
| How is that a copyright violation, though? The tweets are
| publicly available on the internet, and presumably the maker
| space is just showing the Twitter website like anyone could
| themselves...
| greenshackle2 wrote:
| Lots of songs are available on public radio broadcasts, that
| doesn't mean I have the right to remix them and play them in
| my concert hall.
| saagarjha wrote:
| But surely other people can listen in when you play the
| radio?
| greenshackle2 wrote:
| If it's a business in the US, it depends how many
| speakers you have. More than 6 (but no more than 4 in the
| same room), you're supposed to pay licensing fees. [1]
|
| If it's a non-commercial space, I don't know, I'm sure
| there's some complicated piece of regulation you have to
| look at to figure it out.
|
| [1]https://www.broadcastlawblog.com/2015/07/articles/does
| -a-loc...
| shadowgovt wrote:
| That is, literally, a question for the courts to decide
| sometimes.
| colejohnson66 wrote:
| Being on the internet does not make something public domain
| or free to use. A screenshot of a Twitter feed includes many
| copyrighted things: Twitter's web layout, the tweets
| themselves, etc.
| henryfjordan wrote:
| Technically speaking, many things you create (including a
| tweet) are copyright automatically and to use them
| commercially requires a license. In this case either
| MakerSpace needs some sort of agreement with the author of
| each tweet or they need to claim fair use in order to be able
| to legally display it. You give twitter license to reproduce
| your tweets (through the ToS) so they can host them for your
| friends, for example.
|
| Practically speaking it's almost certainly not a copyright
| violation. If you see a sign "Use #HashTag to see your Tweet
| on the jumbotron" and then proceed to tweet at it, you've
| agreed to the licensing terms (that your tweet will be
| displayed).
|
| The only case where this gets hairy is if you didn't know
| that using #Hashtag resulted in it being displayed on the
| jumbotron and didn't want that. If MakerSpace displayed every
| tweet with #DoNotDisplay or something like that, then they
| clearly don't have license and have violated copyright law.
| lowdose wrote:
| I would be more worried about an influx of pranks.
| catalogia wrote:
| #Agile2013 comes to mind.
| ngngngng wrote:
| They always have someone approving them.
|
| A college near me always posts pictures tagged with
| #builtbyBYU and I always post the dude standing in his
| bathroom mirror saying "Hi welcome to Chili's" with that tag
| but it never makes it onto the jumbotron...
| lstamour wrote:
| If I understand disneytermsofuse.com correctly and I am not a
| lawyer, they're claiming #MayThe4th is a Disney Product under the
| terms therein? Or that the Twitter account is a Disney Product?
| Because the terms say:
|
| > The Disney Products may ask for or allow you to communicate,
| submit, upload or otherwise make available text, chats, images,
| audio, video, contest entries or other content ("User Generated
| Content"), which may be accessible and viewable by the public.
| Access to these features may be subject to age restrictions.
| Whether a Disney Product made available by us or in connection
| with Disney Products appears on a Disney website, service and/or
| platform or is integrated with a third-party website, service,
| application, and/or platform, you may not submit or upload User
| Generated Content that is defamatory, harassing, threatening,
| bigoted, hateful, violent, vulgar, obscene, pornographic, or
| otherwise offensive or that harms or can reasonably be expected
| to harm any person or entity, whether or not such material is
| protected by law.
|
| ... and they continue like that for a few paragraphs. Doesn't
| look like they've updated the terms to account for this use.
|
| Either way, reminds me of when sites tried to block "links" or
| require their website terms to apply to simply linking to a
| site...
| sys_64738 wrote:
| I doubt very much you can enforce a term that is a date in the
| year.
| nightcracker wrote:
| Apple? Windows? Boss?
| contravariant wrote:
| It's also going to get awkward for the new Dutch branch of
| DisneyPlus where the date clashes with the yearly WWII
| memorial.
| WilliamEdward wrote:
| It would have to be trademarked and there is no possible way
| this could get trademarked, since trademarks must be non-
| generic. Yes, even with the hash symbol.
| ScoutOrgo wrote:
| What happens if someone replies with IP not owned by Disney and
| they use it?
| pbhjpbhj wrote:
| In general, is a tweet long enough to be a work for copyright
| purposes? Anyone know of any copyright caselaw around tweets?
|
| I can imagine some poems being complete works and fitting in
| the character limit, perhaps.
| colejohnson66 wrote:
| Stanford has a good webpage about short works and
| copyrights[0]. I'm sure 512 byte demo scene programs are
| copyrighted, and with Twitter raising the character limit,
| I'm sure some could be copyrighted.
|
| [0]: https://fairuse.stanford.edu/2003/09/09/copyright_protec
| tion...
| snowwrestler wrote:
| One of two things:
|
| 1) No one complains, Disney uses the content and life goes on.
|
| 2) Someone complains, Disney takes that tweet down and replaces
| it with a different tweet and life goes on.
|
| Disney is not going to court over a tweet. They'll just take it
| down if someone complains.
|
| Also, under copyright law Disney will not "own" any of the IP
| in these tweets, the question is whether they have a license to
| use it.
| criteriasuppl wrote:
| I wonder if this might set a new precedent, what if you don't
| even need to really post anything to automatically be subscribed
| to some arbitrary TOS. ie I'm thinking of someone visiting a
| website and scrolling, and now all of a sudden all their public
| content on the web is no longer theirs!
| beached_whale wrote:
| This is the twitter equivalent of the relative posting the not
| consenting to Facebook's use of their postings.
| pridkett wrote:
| This isn't unique to Disney. Delta Airline has been pushing
| #SkyMilesLife and other assorted hashtags for a while and they've
| had fine print that says they get a license to use the content
| with those hashtags. It was even on the signs hanging in the jet
| bridges back when people used to get on things called airplanes
| and travel to far off lands.
|
| Now it lives on through a website.
|
| > By tagging photos using #SkyMilesLife and/or
| #DeltaMedallionLife, user grants Delta Air Lines (and those they
| authorize) a royalty-free, world-wide, perpetual, non-exclusive
| license to publicly display, distribute, reproduce and create
| derivative works of the submissions ("Submissions"), in whole or
| in part, in any media now existing or later developed, for any
| purpose, including, but not limited to, advertising and promotion
| on Delta websites, commercial products and any other Delta
| channels, including but not limited to #SkyMilesLife or
| #DeltaMedallionLife publications. Delta reserves the right to use
| or not use content tagged #Skymileslife and/or
| #DeltaMedallionLife and user will not be entitled to compensation
| if photo is used.
|
| from: https://skymileslife.delta.com/
| snowwrestler wrote:
| Apple applied very similar terms to their "Shot on iPhone"
| campaign. The public outcry was over paying the winners, but
| Apple's terms for the campaign gave themselves a license to use
| any submission, which was defined as a public post that used a
| certain hashtag and contained certain information.
|
| The fact that no one seems to remember this about "Shot on
| iPhone" is a good clue that few people actually care about this
| sort of thing.
|
| Which makes sense because from a practical perspective--whether
| or not these terms are actually enforceable--it's super easy to
| avoid them. Just don't use that hashtag.
| alinde wrote:
| (from the same site) > By tagging photos using #SkyMilesLife
| and/or #DeltaMedallionLife, user grants Delta Air Lines (and
| those they authorize) a royalty-free, world-wide, perpetual,
| non-exclusive license
|
| I'd argue this is also not limited to Twitter posts?
|
| > User warrants and represents: (a) he/she is the sole and
| exclusive owner of the Submission, including all rights therein
| [...]
|
| Because no one ever posted something they didn't own. I don't
| know the legality of any issues that this can bring, but this
| seems comical.
|
| What would be the alternative though?
| mikeg8 wrote:
| Can any lawyers chime in here? How would that actually hold up
| in a copyright lawsuit brought against them?
| lilSebastian wrote:
| > an any lawyers chime in here?
|
| They're too busy, on the clock
| BitwiseFool wrote:
| I don't see this holding up - especially because it's ripe for
| abuse. What's to stop me from making a TOS for my own hashtag?
| smnrchrds wrote:
| For it not to be held up, someone has to take Disney to court
| and win. Good luck with that. It's the whole _single-digit
| millionaires don 't have effective access to legal system_,
| turned up to 11. I can only see a double-digit billionaire
| having the resources to fight this to the end.
| RandomBacon wrote:
| What if Alice and Bob get together and decide that one of
| then does the same thing like Disney, and the other takes the
| other to court in order to create a precedence.
|
| Same outcome, just Disney is not involved.
| nicoburns wrote:
| Not convinced you'd even a lawyer to fight this though. It's
| just so obviously wrong.
| AnimalMuppet wrote:
| Not quite. For this to hold up, either:
|
| - everyone has to silently acquiesce to this,
|
| - Disney has to actually file a court case against _everyone_
| who violates their "terms" and win them all.
|
| I think they're trying for the first option. Suing thousands
| of people for stupidly unreasonable reasons is not a good
| look, especially for a company where image is everything.
| smnrchrds wrote:
| Why would Disney have to sue anyone? The violation will
| come from Disney, not thousands of people.
|
| Disney is saying they have the right to use any tweet
| containing the hashtag, including your name (and probably
| profile picture). If they use your tweet and you don't like
| it, you can sue them for copyright violation or using your
| name in advertising. However, there is no way in hell you
| can win that suit, because it is Disney and it will take
| years or decades and millions of dollars to fight it in the
| courts.
|
| So if they use your tweet in advertising without your
| consent, your options are (1) to give up and move on, or
| (2) to spend the rest of your time on earth and all the
| money you have and will earn to fight them in courts.
| yummypaint wrote:
| Another option is to collectively create such a massive
| backlash that they don't dare do this again. Maybe also
| lots of bots flooding the tag with text that can pass
| automated screening but is utterly unsuitable for them to
| publish?
| AnimalMuppet wrote:
| Ah, I see.
| Consultant32452 wrote:
| I have an anecdote about this. I worked at Disney for some
| time and a coworker was an avid 2nd amendment person. They
| left their firearm in their car as is legal for any employer
| with a very short list of exceptions. I think munitions
| development is one of the exceptions, and Disney qualifies
| because of their massive fireworks shows. I'm very foggy on
| these details as it's been many years since. Anyways, he was
| chatting it up with a security person and it came out in
| convo that he had his firearm in his car. He was immediately
| fired and removed from the property. He tried to fight it in
| court.
|
| Now this individual was remarkably stupid just as a general
| person, regardless of this event. I don't have any interest
| in debating the merits of what happened to him one way or the
| other.
|
| However, it was interesting that the Disney lawyer explicitly
| informed his lawyer that their strategy would be to just
| bleed him dry into bankruptcy by getting continuances and
| stuff forever into the future, which would force him to keep
| paying his lawyer to show up and do stuff, but would never
| move the case forward.
| kevin_thibedeau wrote:
| This is why you only live in states with single-party
| consent recording privileges and document everything these
| sleezeballs say. Then hand it over to the judge.
| openasocket wrote:
| I'm sure the lawyer actually said something much more
| nuanced that meant more or less the same thing but didn't
| rise to the level of an actual threat to subvert
| proceedings in bad faith. Anything that is said between
| counsel is admissible in court, and if the Disney lawyer
| did that, not only would that hurt their defense, it
| could mean ethics complaints and sanctions for the
| lawyer, personally.
| Consultant32452 wrote:
| That sounds nice in theory, but the second order effect
| of that kind of thing happening a lot would be the
| megacorp lawyer doesn't warn you first. Then, after you
| are bankrupt, you may or may not figure out what they did
| to you. But you still lost and you're still bankrupt.
| benibela wrote:
| But then your employer pulls out the recording of all the
| awkward things you said at work.
| henryfjordan wrote:
| If Disney explicitly told this guy's lawyer that was their
| plan, his lawyer would be game to let them drag it out
| because he'll get all his attorney's fees back at the end
| on Disney's dime. You have to legitimately believe you can
| succeed in court, you cannot just file stuff to slow the
| process.
|
| Now maybe they just implied that or something, but I very
| much doubt the story happened exactly as described.
| Consultant32452 wrote:
| In order for the drag it out and get attorney's fees back
| plan to work, you have to be really confident you'll win.
| I doubt that was the case.
| snowwrestler wrote:
| Disney's strategy here will obviously be to just honor any
| and all complaints and take that content down.
|
| They gain nothing from a fight, and there are plenty more
| Star Wars fans out there who would be happy to have their
| tweets promoted by Disney.
| CaveTech wrote:
| "By creating digital advertising, you agree to pay me, in
| perpetuity, all profit generated." - Me
|
| There's clearly no legal standing for a 3rd party organization
| to make blanket agreements for platforms they don't own.
| Dowwie wrote:
| This is considered unconscionable according to contract law as it
| is overwhelmingly one-sided in favor of the party
| zucker42 wrote:
| If I use the hashtag in a way Disney doesn't like, can I be
| prosecuted under the CFAA?
| tomcooks wrote:
| How do you fuck up so bad marketing to one of the biggest
| fanbases in the universe?
| jedberg wrote:
| You start by making a trilogy with no coherent story across the
| three movies that ends by basically undoing the first two
| trilogies and go from there.
|
| (For the record I enjoyed the last three movies as general
| fantasy movies, they just didn't fit all that well into the
| mythology).
| komali2 wrote:
| The "cool" parts were cool. The fights were _way_ better than
| the clone wars trilogy. The return to using puppets and other
| physical props was great. Trying for a strong woman lead -
| excellent.
|
| The characters - garbage.
|
| The story - trash.
|
| Spiking a star destroyer with a FTL ship - universe-ruining,
| but it certainly sounded dope.
|
| It didn't "ruin" star wars though. Nothing can ever change
| how great the first (first-made) three movies were. Well,
| nothing other than destroying all original copies and only
| making available ones with bad Xbox-graphics 3d model aliens
| walking around directly in front of all the best shots. Oh
| wait...
| benibela wrote:
| Disney ruined Star Wars when they killed the EU.
| jedberg wrote:
| > Spiking a star destroyer with a FTL ship - universe-
| ruining, but it certainly sounded dope.
|
| They addressed that in Episode 9, with the throwaway line:
| "You can't do a Holdo again, that's a 1 in a million
| chance!"
|
| > Well, nothing other than destroying all original copies
|
| They'll have to pry my OT Laserdisks out of my cold dead
| hands.
| [deleted]
| the_arun wrote:
| Just a viral gimmick!
| nr152522 wrote:
| Is this tweet some kind of Jedi mind trick?
| jnellis wrote:
| 1. Sith Corp put out draconian statement.
|
| 2. Clone army of internet nerds raises awareness.
|
| 3. May the Force, is a marketing success.
| fortran77 wrote:
| Misleading title. Disney also claims you have to @ the account
| associated with the promotion. It's still odd, but not quite the
| same as claiming all use of the hashtag.
| hombre_fatal wrote:
| Yeah, some comments are clearly responding to the "wait, a
| company can own a hash tag?" clickbait of the title.
| sovietmudkipz wrote:
| If anyone could pay legal claim to a twitter hashtag, wouldn't it
| be the first person who used the twitter hashtag on twitter?
|
| I would imagine it would go to that person through the default
| sort of copyright of artistic work (the concept).
|
| Maybe that's technically forfeit by twitter's usage terms of
| service (ToS)? If so, does twitter's usage ToS supplant Disney's
| claim (generated from twitter user @DisneyPlus)?
|
| I wonder if Disney coordinated with the originator of the hashtag
| before sending this tweet.
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