Well, at least this is better than anonymously mailing bags of excrement to those one believes are one's enemies: Joe Patrice: Law School Professor Doesn’t Understand Twitter, Basic Legal Concepts: "Brian Leiter... occasionally just makes stuff up about us and then doubles down on his easily debunked claims... it all shakes out. But Leiter reached 'old man yells at cloud' status this week when he took to Twitter to make a curious claim that manages to screw up Twitter, intellectual property law, and basic contracts all at once: 'My lawyer told me that I would have to copyright all my tweets to stop assholes from reposting them, as some are still doing. I have however been purging followers without real names, unless I know them. I will continues to add followers with real identities.' Hmmmmm. Indeed! My advice for Professor Leiter based on this tweet would be to find a new lawyer who is aware that Leiter’s tweets actually ARE copyrighted the instant he commits his thoughts to writing.... Copyright is automatic. But that’s the sort of stuff that doesn’t come up in 'Law and Philosophy' courses, so it’s probably not a legal concept that’s top of mind for the professor. But... Leiter’s still not going to be able to prevent people from reposting them, because Twitter’s terms of service make very clear that users are affording the service—and its other users — a license to use the content anywhere: 'By submitting, posting or displaying Content on or through the Services, you grant us a worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free 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). This license authorizes us to make your Content available to the rest of the world and to let others do the same'...
#noted
