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I love picking up on these types of stories. This one is a legal, civil battle between two parties in which a party is denied exclusive rights over a TwitPic. A US District Court has ruled that posting something on Twitter is not the same as obtaining exclusive ownership. District Court Judge William Pauley has disallowed a motion to dismiss the lawsuit that photographer Daniel Morel has brought against Agence France-Presse for using his work without credit or compensation after he had uploaded them to TwitPic.
Mr. Morel shared photos from the aftermath of the Haiti earthquake via the TwitPic, only to be later published by AFP, Newsweek and other news agencies who improperly credited them to Lisandro Suero, a Dominican Republic citizen who had illegally copied the pics before selling them as his own to AFP and other outlets.. When Morel filed suit against the agencies using his work, AFP made the surprising move of claiming that what it had done was legal because it was no different than other Twitter users retweeting other’s posts; lawyers for AFP explained that, in their view, Morel had “provided a nonexclusive license to use his photographs when he posted them on a social networking and blogging website known as Twitter without any limitation on the use, copying or distribution of the photographs.”
More button to hear from the judge >>
Justice Pauley wrote in his ruling,,
By their express language, Twitter’s terms grant a license to use content only to Twitter and its partners. Similarly, Twitpic’s terms grant a license to use photographs only to “Twitpic.com or affiliated sites.” AFP and the Third-Party Defendants do not claim they are partners of Twitter or affiliates of Twitpic licensed under the terms of service. Moreover, the provision that Twitter “encourage[s] and permit[s] broad re-use of Content” does not clearly confer a right on other users to re-use copyrighted postings. Rather, that permissive language stands in contrast to the express, mandatory terms conferring a “license” and “rights” on Twitter.
As far as the other media outlets who used the pics such as CNN, ABC and CBS, their case will proceed after 2010.
Via techland.time