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Copyright Law in the Age of Twitter
The exponential growth of social media, and the inevitable conflicts that result, is leading to more and more litigation. In many instances, courts are being asked to apply laws crafted before the Internet era to these modern disputes. For example, the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York recently decided an issue involving Twitter and the federal Copyright Act (the Act) that may have significant implications for online publications and, ultimately, for how people view the news.
In Goldman v. Breitbart News Network, No. 17-cv-3144 (KBF) (S.D.N.Y. Feb. 15, 2018), the court was faced with deciding whether an image shown on one website but stored on another website's server implicated the display rights of the image's owner within the meaning of the Act. The court's conclusion — that the actual location of the image had no relevance — could very well change the way stories are published online.
The Case
The case arose on July 2, 2016 when Justin Goldman photographed Tom Brady, the New England Patriots quarterback, and an executive from the Boston Celtics basketball team on a street in East Hampton. Goldman uploaded the photo to Snapchat, where it went viral, reaching Twitter.
A number of online news outlets and blogs published articles featuring the photo and exploring whether the Boston Celtics would be able to recruit basketball player Kevin Durant with Tom Brady's help. None of these websites actually downloaded the photo from Twitter, copied it, or stored it on their own servers (i.e., computers connected to the Internet). Rather, they made the photo visible in their articles through a technical process known as “embedding.”
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