You cannot copyright a Tweet
zeldman.com
zeldman.com
http://canyoucopyrightatweet.com/
The skinny:
"The question is not: Are Tweets Copyrightable. The question is: Is This Tweet Copyrightable. The copyrightability of Tweets is not dependent on the fact that they are Tweets. Rather, it’s dependent on the analysis of the Tweet in question. The all-encompassing response that all Tweets are either protected or not protected is misguided. The real response is that it depends. However, when you analyze most Tweets, they would never individually pass copyright muster.
I read an interesting post in the thread I’ve discussed throughout this article, and the post mentioned a Haiku. To me, that’s smart thinking. Finding a possible protectable Tweet among the hordes of non-possibility. Maybe a Haiku is your ticket to Tweet monopolization. Otherwise, you probably won’t be able to protect anything."
http://twitter.com/Jennyholzer
These short phrases have been the basis of her entire body of work for decades. I find it hard to believe she cannot copyright them.
From the UK Copyright website:
Copyright is an automatic right and arises whenever an individual or company creates a work. To qualify, a work should be regarded as original, and exhibit a degree of labour, skill or judgement.
...
Names, titles, short phrases and colours are not generally considered unique or substantial enough to be covered, but a creation, such as a logo, that combines these elements may be.
Here we have 'short phrases' excluded again - but in the same context as a title. I'd say that many tweets would meet the criteria in the first paragraph just about.
Thoughts from any other UK people?
Given that the Tweet is already attached to an identity (individual or corporate account) and assuming one may claim even a reasonable semblance of creativity and originality on the content of said Tweet, it's technically Copywritable, but a mere "status" update, link, or factual listing is not.
- Think of all the copywritten corporate and government slogans (Just Do It, Army of One, What can brown do for you, Aim Higher, etc.) which could quite easily fit into a Tweet with room to spare.
- Think of all the haikus (see @MJ), other short poems, and unicode/ascii-art #twitterart (see @l_I__I_l) posts.
That being said, I can't think of any rational (e.g. economic) reason which would support registration of the Tweet as the "fixed medium".
Mostly, I can envision defensive sorts of legal actions such as blatant plagiarism or abuse/mis-use of a pre-existing logo, unattributed passage, or slogan.
As the multitudes of "sampling" lawsuit precedents in the music industry has shown, authorship rights of even nano-sized digital content can be successfully asserted.
See, I committed prima facie infringement twice here. Hopefully I can argue fair use when I get sued, but I'm not sure I can affort the lawyer. You should worry, too, bonsaitree, as you infringed on at least 4 works in your post.
In order for infringement to hold up, you'd have to get around the "fair use" defense. As this is 3rd party non-vested commentary on "news and current events" in a public forum, it's basically air-tight.
For example, if I was posting a tweet using SMS the original publishing platform is my phone (it's saved onto it first) and then passed onto Twitter.
Twitter then chooses to disregard the additional information contained within the entirity of a text message (the first 20 characters if memory serves me right, its been awhile since I looked up the specs). However, I'd argue those additional characters that Twitter disregards are copywritable as per the definition in the linked document.
Listings of ingredients, as in recipes, labels, or formulas. When a recipe or formula is accompanied by an explanation or directions, the text directions may be copyrightable, but the recipe or formula itself remains uncopyrightable.
The additional information contained in an SMS wold be akin to directions.