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Disney claims anyone using a Twitter hashtag is agreeing to their terms of use

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Re: Disney claims anyone using a Twitter hashtag is agreeing to their terms of use

#121

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.

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.

They protected their code. If I recall correctly you could license it separately.

Nothing stopped you from implementing them yourself.

Re: Disney claims anyone using a Twitter hashtag is agreeing to their terms of use

#122
post #86
post #44

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.

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…

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.

Re: Disney claims anyone using a Twitter hashtag is agreeing to their terms of use

#124

What happens if someone replies with IP not owned by Disney and they use it?

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.

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_protection...

Re: Disney claims anyone using a Twitter hashtag is agreeing to their terms of use

#125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Don’t be snarky. Anyways, this is from Twitters TOS[0 §5]: > 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 Con…

What happens if you post a photo of GPLed code on it?

Re: Disney claims anyone using a Twitter hashtag is agreeing to their terms of use

#126
post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure that would pass the "meeting of minds" test of contract law...

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.

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.

Re: Disney claims anyone using a Twitter hashtag is agreeing to their terms of use

#127
post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure that would pass the "meeting of minds" test of contract law...

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.

Luckily US still has a first sale doctrine. Perhaps after you pass the book on you have to stop making puppets though.

Re: Disney claims anyone using a Twitter hashtag is agreeing to their terms of use

#129

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.

I don't get the outrage, twitter is public and they want to use fan-created public tweets for some marketing thing. Who cares?

Re: Disney claims anyone using a Twitter hashtag is agreeing to their terms of use

#130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don’t be snarky. Anyways, this is from Twitters TOS[0 §5]: > 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 Con…

What happens if you post a photo of GPLed code on it?

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