FW: Twitter is Suing me!!!
Dean Collins
Any other developer being sued by Twitter today?
If so give me a call – feel free to tweet out www.MyTwitterButler.com/I’m_Being_Sued to anyone you want – looking forward to the press having a field day with this.
Regards,
Dean Collins
de...@MyTwitterButler.com
+1-212-203-4357 New York
+61-2-9016-5642 (Sydney in-dial).
+44-20-3129-6001 (London in-dial).
From: Dean Collins
Sent: Tuesday, August 11, 2009
10:37 PM
To: 'newt...@meetup.com'
Subject: Twitter is Suing me!!!
So not only are Twitter fighting battles with Russian hackers they are now fighting their own third party API developer community !!
I received this email 30 minutes ago stating that Twitter is suing me??
Basically they feel that my application - www.MyTwitterButler.com does the following.
1/ That anyone using the API to auto follow people are breaching the TOS??
2/ That no one can use the word “Twitter” in their domain
3/ That somehow people might be confused my application is related to twitter even though every page is labeled
“Copyright 2009 © My Twitter Butler - Not related in anyway to Twitter Inc, if I owned Twitter would i be spending my time building this app??
Is this the end for Twitter 3rd party developers?
Have they forgotten that it was people like me who saw a need and built an application using the publicly defined Twitter API to add value to the Twitter ecosystem?
I have asked Twitters lawyers for a conference call tomorrow to clear up ‘WHY’ they feel anyone using the twitter API to auto follow people is an illegal act and will be looking forward to their answers about ‘WHY’ the twitter API was built in the first place if they want to sue people for using it.
www.MyTwitterButler.com/I’m_Being_Sued
Regards,
Dean Collins
de...@MyTwitterButler.com
+1-212-203-4357 New York
+61-2-9016-5642 (Sydney
in-dial).
+44-20-3129-6001 (London
in-dial).
FENWICK & WEST LLP
SILICON VALLEY CENTER 801 CALI FORN IA STREET MOUNTAIN VIEW, CA 94041
TEL 650.988.8500 FAX 650.938.5200 WWW.FENWICK.COM
August 11, 2009
KAREN WEBB
VIA CERTIFIED MAIL AND EMAIL
Dean Collins
Attn: MyTwitterButler.com
dean@cognation.net
Re: Infringement of Twitter, Inc.'s Trademark Rights
Dear Mr. Collins:
EMAIL KWEBB@FENWICK.COM
DIRECT DIAL (650) 335·7656
This firm represents Twitter, Inc. ("Twitter"), owner of the TWITTER trademark and
the popular social networking and micro-blogging website at www.twitter.com. We are
contacting you regarding your violation of Twitter's Terms of Service ("TOS") and spam
rules, and your infringement of Twitter's trademark rights.
Twitter has recently become aware that you have registered and are using the
MyTwitterButler.com domain, where you advertise and offer for sale the "My Twitter Butler"
software that facilitates aggressive and automatic following to Twitter users. On your website
you also claim to have used the same aggressive following techniques. This activity violates
Twitter's TOS and rules.
In addition to the above violations, you are also infringing on Twitter's trademark
rights by using the MyTwitterButler.com domain and the TWITTER trademark. As you are
likely aware, Twitter's extensive and widespread use of its TWITTER trademark provides
Twitter with strong and defensible rights in the mark, and has caused the mark to become
well-known, if not famous, in today's online marketplace. Twitter owns trademark
applications and registrations for its mark in the United States and numerous other countries
for use in connection with its online services, which will provide Twitter with exclusive rights
in the mark.
Twitter has expended significant time and financial resources to build up the
considerable customer recognition and goodwill related to its valuable TWITTER mark. In
addition, in order to protect its investment and valuable intellectual property rights in its
trademark, Twitter is required to prevent others from infringing or diluting the value of its
brand. In light of the importance and distinctiveness of the mark and the strength of Twitter's
legal rights to its valuable intellectual property, please be advised that Twitter is determined to
take whatever steps are necessary to protect its rights in the mark.
Having said that, at this time, we are willing to assume that you did not choose to
misuse Twitter's trademark with the conscious intent of infringing Twitter's rights or trading
off of Twitter's goodwill. Twitter is concerned, however, that your use of My Twitter Butler
and the related domain may cause confusion in the marketplace by suggesting that you and
your site are somehow affiliated with Twitter, or are endorsed, sponsored, or approved by
Twitter, which would result in an infringement of Twitter's valuable trademark rights.
In light of the above, we must demand that you immediately:
1. deactivate the MyTwitterButler.com website;
2. transfer the MyTwitterButler.com domain to Twitter;
3. comply with Twitter's TOS and rules, which includes stopping your aggressive
and automatic following and offering techniques and software for others to
aggressively or automatically follow; and
4. stop all use of the My Twitter Butler name, the TWITTER mark, or any other
name, logo, or domain name that includes TWITTER or any confusingly similar
term.
Please respond to me no later than August 24, 2009, to confirm that you have
complied with these demands and to obtain domain transfer instructions. Twitter is hopeful
that this matter can be resolved quickly and amicably. If, however, you do not comply with
these requests, Twitter will be forced to consider suspending your Twitter accounts and take
such steps as it deems necessary to protect its intellectual property rights.
We look forward to hearing from you.
Sincerely,
KAW
From: Karen Webb
[mailto:KW...@fenwick.com]
Sent: Tuesday, August 11, 2009
8:55 PM
To:
de5ffa48513...@privacy.no-ip.com; Dean Collins
Subject: Letter re
MyTwitterButler.com
Dear Mr. Collins:
Please see the attached letter.
Sincerely,
Karen Webb
Karen A.
Webb | Fenwick &
West LLP
801 California St. | Mountain View, CA
94041
T: 650-335-7656 | F: 650-938-5200
kw...@fenwick.com
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& West LLP to be used, and cannot be used, for the purpose of (i)
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-- ivey
Jesse Stay
Kevin Mesiab
Kevin Mesiab
CEO, Mesiab Labs L.L.C.
http://twitter.com/kmesiab
http://mesiablabs.com
http://retweet.com
Neil Ellis
3. Might be good to avoid the "get more followers" types of apps in the first place...
Cameron Kaiser
--
------------------------------------ personal: http://www.cameronkaiser.com/ --
Cameron Kaiser * Floodgap Systems * www.floodgap.com * cka...@floodgap.com
-- They told me I was gullible ... and I believed them. -----------------------
Neil Ellis
peace
Neil
Kevin Mesiab
I'm very interested to learn more about the specifics, if there is some developer TOS I'm unaware of.
JDG
Any other developer being sued by Twitter today?
Glad I learned to read.
--
Internets. Serious business.
Jeremy Darling
As for Twitter TOS and developer rights. Nope, can't sue for voilation of a TOS on a public API either. You can suspend "suspect activities" and revoke developer/company rights but you can't actually file suite on a TOS violation of this type. Lots of statuatory presidence on the subject.
On point 3, 80% rule along with the fact that you have clearly labeled in valid font size the non-affiliation with Twitter again negates this point in most cases.
Actually, about the only thing they could get you for would be Slander/Liable if you were spreading bad publicity about the company that was un-true. In that case, they could get you for everything your worth LOL. Then again, being a public entity they would fall under the same laws as the movie stars and other public figures and would basically have to suck it up in the end.
- Jeremy
Larry Wright
jim.renkel
FACT: http://apiwiki.twitter.com/Terms-of-Service states: "Please give
us a nod in your app, perhaps by including one of these stylish
"Powered by Twitter" badges", which I read as "If ya use the API you
must acknowledge twitter."
FACT: The letter from twitter's lawyers states: "stop all use of ...
the TWITTER mark", which I read as "Ya can't use the word twitter in
your application or on your website".
IMPLICATION: No one can use the API !!!
I guess we should all pack up and move on.
Jim
On Aug 11, 10:13 pm, Larry Wright <larrywri...@gmail.com> wrote:
> As others have pointed out, this isn't a lawsuit. That aside, Twitter
> announced some time ago that they were not comfortable with people
> using their name as part of the name of their product (http://blog.twitter.com/2009/07/may-tweets-be-with-you.html)
> Regardless, you'll get little sympathy from me. Your application
> encourages many of the behaviors most twitter users find annoying. The
> Twitter ecosystem is frankly better off without it.
>
> On Aug 11, 2009, at 9:48 PM, Dean Collins wrote:
>
> > Any other developer being sued by Twitter today?
>
> > If so give me a call – feel free to tweet outwww.MyTwitterButler.com/I
> > ’m_Being_Sued to anyone you want – looking forward to the press
> > having a field day with this.
>
> > Regards,
> > Dean Collins
Dean Collins
(and yes I read the comment I'm not being sued....I'm facing legal action)
Does Twitter inc know that their lawyers are shutting down the third party developer community?
(sorry I'm new to this and freaking out - never had a lawyer sue me like this)
Regards,
Dean Collins
de...@MyTwitterButler.com
+1-212-203-4357 New York
+61-2-9016-5642 (Sydney in-dial).
+44-20-3129-6001 (London in-dial).
Jim
> > If so give me a call - feel free to tweet outwww.MyTwitterButler.com/I
> > 'm_Being_Sued to anyone you want - looking forward to the press
Michael Ivey
(sorry I'm new to this and freaking out - never had a lawyer sue me like this)
Josh Roesslein
I'm sorry but Dean you are using their trademark in your product name which violates the trademark.
You have been asked nicely to stop. They could easily take you to court and probably sue every dime out of your company.
From the letter it seems its just a warning, not a law suite yet.
Best to comply with them and avoid a law suit.
**note I am not a lawyer and this is just my two cents. i'd recommend talking with your own lawyer
on what rights you have in this case.**
Best of luck
Josh
Josh
Howard Siegel
How do you get from 1 instance of legal action to "Twitter's lawyers are shutting down the third
party developer community"?
- h
EdPimentl
They own the brand Twitter .... why not rename your service?
-E
Gpro.ws
Vision Jinx
become like the RIAA and spend all their money suing half the Internet
(or paying high priced lawyers to send out letters etc)
Re: 2/ That no one can use the word "Twitter" in their domain
A quick Google search reveals...
twittercounter.com
twitterfall.com
twitter-friends.com
www.twitter.ca
www.tinytwitter.com
www.twitterbuttons.com
www.accessibletwitter.com
twitterfeed.com
twitterpatterns.com
www.twitterlocal.net
www.twitterbackgrounds.com
twittergallery.com
twitteranalyzer.com
whentwitterisdown.com
destroytwitter.com
blog.twittervotereport.com
twitter.pbworks.com
twitter.polldaddy.com
twitter.alltop.com
twitter.infinityward.com
twitter.grader.com
and the list goes on...
On Aug 11, 9:50 pm, "jim.renkel" <james.ren...@gmail.com> wrote:
> An interesting implication is buried in all of this.
>
Dean Collins
It’s not that simple – if you read the letter they are telling me I have to stop selling the software entirely.
Regards,
Dean Collins
de...@MyTwitterButler.com
+1-212-203-4357 New York
+61-2-9016-5642 (Sydney in-dial).
+44-20-3129-6001 (London in-dial).
Larry Wright
Larry Wright
jim.renkel
my check when I wrote my previous post. My bad! :-(
Dean: I don't mean to make light of your particular situation.
Sometimes I just can't not point out absurdities, which the logic I
presented clearly is.
What I was trying to do, perhaps not too well, is point out that the
API TOS may need to be revised to say that developers may use
twitter's trademarks, but only in "approved" ways.
BTW, twitter is trademarking "tweet" as well as "twitter". You have
been warned! :-)
Jim
On Aug 11, 10:50 pm, "jim.renkel" <james.ren...@gmail.com> wrote:
> An interesting implication is buried in all of this.
>
Jeremy Darling
In short, we are asking you to stop selling your product and give us the name (btw: they can't demand you give them the name, they can't even force you to give them the name, they can offer to buy it though at fair "trade value").
As I said before, there are LOTS of legal presidencies on this type of action and what can and can't be done. In no manor do they suggest that they will or are going to sue you if you don't comply. They do say they will suspend your accounts (acceptable). They could suspend any users suspect of using your product (actually, easily enough). Sue you, doubt it.
If you don't want to stop selling, don't want to hand it over carte blanche, or are just plain willing to stand against them, then talk to a lawyer. One other note, not sure when you ACTUALLY received the letter, but in the US 30 days written notice is required. According to the letter dates given they have provided only 12.
PS: I'm no lawyer, but I've been around the block a few times and seen this "letter of action" many times before (from both ends). The only answers are "Get a lawyer" or "Give up". Its your choice.
- Jeremy
PPS: My favorite URL that twitter has yet to do anything against (that I know of) tweetshit.com (parked at godaddy LOL and not mine)
Jeremy Darling
Seems lil twitter grew up and found lawyers. While I don't agree or like the product that Dean sells, I dis-agree more with the misuse of legal representation by a corporation even more. I remember when MS started this everyone threw stones (and courts threw it out), now twitter starts it and its OK!?
I warn developers to watch their backs, your little cheezy app that uses twitter may bite you in the arse.
Of course, I don't see twitter going after the advertising/marketing companies utilizing the API and hitting the service just as many times to mine for data or to use what they mine to target sales. That seems to be a complete and total ethical use of the service, course a few $$ thrown the right direction always does sway a corporations view of grey.
- Jeremy
Goblin
(which clearly doesn't use the word Twitter).
They weren't too draconian in their claims. They want a disclaimer put
on the site (fair enough) and for me to stop using the little blue
birds (again, fair enough. This is what happens when a stupid weekend
project turns into half million uniques a month).
What isn't quite as fair is that I have to stop using a font
"identical or similar to that used in the Twitter logo". I'm using
Arial Rounded which is significantly different to the custom font
Twitter uses and as common a typeface as you can get, though the
colours are similar. This one's the kicker though, they want me to
"permanently stop use on the website of a blue background". WTF?
Twitter now owns blue? I'm about a day away from dropping a redesign
anyway, but being told what colours I can use is a bit much.
This was all on the same day that they approved my whitelisting :)
Rich
applications, but not their brand name, Twitter. Perfectly acceptable
in my personal opinion.
Andrew Badera
Apparently you fail to recall the "MikeRoweSoft.com" case.
Twitter can most definitely enforce their trademark here.
∞ Andy Badera
∞ This email is: [ ] bloggable [x] ask first [ ] private
∞ Google me: http://www.google.com/search?q=(andrew+badera)+OR+(andy+badera)
Andrew Badera
I thought there was a C&D incident last month that revolved around "tweet"?
Rich
published only last month says
"We have applied to trademark Tweet because it is clearly attached to
Twitter from a brand perspective but we have no intention of "going
after" the wonderful applications and services that use the word in
their name when associated with Twitter. In fact, we encourage the use
of the word Tweet."
On Aug 12, 10:47 am, Andrew Badera <and...@badera.us> wrote:
Andrew Badera
>
> I'm not aware of this but this link http://blog.twitter.com/2009/07/may-tweets-be-with-you.html,
> published only last month says
>
> "We have applied to trademark Tweet because it is clearly attached to
> Twitter from a brand perspective but we have no intention of "going
> after" the wonderful applications and services that use the word in
> their name when associated with Twitter. In fact, we encourage the use
> of the word Tweet."
>
Thanks, I'd missed that. I only saw the original, unupdated article
that brought up the issue on TechCrunch. Great to know.
--ab
Goblin
Twitterholic, Twitpic, Twitvid, Twittelator, Twitterena, Twitterfon,
iTwitter etc?
I admit that I was fair game having the blue birds in the backdrop (as
I say, it was a stupid project that got traction and the new version
is live now anyway), but if Twitter is deciding to take down everyone
with Twit in their name then there are going to be some serious
issues. I know they have to show they are attempting to protect
trademark or risk losing it, but this seems a little heavy handed :(
On Aug 12, 10:54 am, Andrew Badera <and...@badera.us> wrote:
> On Wed, Aug 12, 2009 at 5:52 AM, Rich<rhyl...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > I'm not aware of this but this linkhttp://blog.twitter.com/2009/07/may-tweets-be-with-you.html,
Dale Merritt
Dale Merritt
Fol.la MeDia, LLC
Dale Merritt
FYI - mashable.com just posted a story on this here
http://mashable.com/2009/08/12/twitter-not-suing-developer/
Interesting to know that if Twitter gets the trademark for "Tweet"
also what about the apps and businesses that have been using it before
the claim like TweetDeck etc etc? Seems they would have a justifiable
claim to the name also? How does that work?
Not sure about the US but where I am if someone has made a stable
reputation from a name they are also entitled to a trademark clause
for it regardless if they officially trademarked it. (in my own words)
"The owner of a common law trademark may also file suit, but an
unregistered mark may be protectable only within the geographical area
within which it has been used or in geographical areas into which it
may be reasonably expected to expand."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trademark
Disclaimer: I'm not a lawyer and don't play one on TV either so seek
your own legal council regarding it.
Dewald Pretorius
of "aggressive following" to be publicly available before any legal
action can be based on it?
Just asking.
Dewald
JDG
Internets. Serious business.
Andrew Badera
The decision in any legal action would set the precedent most likely.
It's essentially an interpretation of contract case.
Duane Roelands
You're violating Twitter's trademark by selling a product with
"Twitter" in the name. The legal precedents for this are ironclad.
You can't do it.
You're violating Twitters terms of service by offering a program that
auto-follows thousands of people at a time. Did you really think you
were going to get away with that?
It doesn't matter if you think it's fair. It doesn't matter who else
is doing it. It doesn't even matter if you think you're right: you're
not.
Stop infringing Twitter's trademark and stop violating their terms of
service and they'll leave you alone. It's really not rocket science.
Bill Kocik
On Aug 12, 12:27 am, Jeremy Darling <jeremy.darl...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Seems lil twitter grew up and found lawyers. While I don't agree or like
> the product that Dean sells, I dis-agree more with the misuse of legal
> representation by a corporation even more. I remember when MS started this
> everyone threw stones (and courts threw it out), now twitter starts it and
> its OK!?
lot of people don't realize about US trademark law is this: Twitter
doesn't have a choice in this matter. They are *required* to actively
defend their trademark, or they will lose it. This is how the law
works, and it's why you often see companies taking seemingly
unnecessary action against seemingly minor violations (not that I'm
quantifying this as minor). They have to, that's all there is to it.
Larry Wright
I'm not expressing an opinion on this one way or the other, but what a
lot of people don't realize about US trademark law is this: Twitter
doesn't have a choice in this matter. They are *required* to actively
defend their trademark, or they will lose it. This is how the law
works, and it's why you often see companies taking seemingly
unnecessary action against seemingly minor violations (not that I'm
quantifying this as minor). They have to, that's all there is to it.
--
Larry Wright
Dewald Pretorius
One would hope that a judge would not even hear a case that said,
"Defendent violated terms that he had no way of knowing exactly when
and how he violated those terms."
Suspending accounts based on what is a nebulous concept to the public
is one thing. Even though it may not be good PR, it is well within
someone's rights to do so. But, to take legal action based on it is
probably, or shall I say hopefully, a bit of a stretch of the
imagination. There is a good reason why law books and contracts are so
thick and contain so many definitions, namely, so you can know exactly
when you have broken the law or broken the terms of the contract.
Dewald
Andrew Badera
>
> Andy,
>
> One would hope that a judge would not even hear a case that said,
> "Defendent violated terms that he had no way of knowing exactly when
> and how he violated those terms."
>
> Suspending accounts based on what is a nebulous concept to the public
> is one thing. Even though it may not be good PR, it is well within
> someone's rights to do so. But, to take legal action based on it is
> probably, or shall I say hopefully, a bit of a stretch of the
> imagination. There is a good reason why law books and contracts are so
> thick and contain so many definitions, namely, so you can know exactly
> when you have broken the law or broken the terms of the contract.
>
> Dewald
>
And if a judge refused to hear the case, that's also setting some
precedent, and forces Twitter to provide clearer terms if they expect
to pursue similar matters in the future.
David Fisher
freaking out hysterically here.
He's not being sued. Twitter does own the name Twitter and can
selectively choose to sue/C&D (or not sue) anyone they like who
infringes on it. You defense being "other people have registered the
domain names too!" isn't any better one than you'll get with saying,
"But other people use Bittorrent too!"
Someone up in the thread said, "No one can now use the Twitter API"
because it says you can't use Twitter's name in your application, but
they want you to put "Powered by Twitter" on the site. That's just
FUD.
Come on guys, put on your big boy pants and lets show a bit of
business acumen and maturity here. Twitter isn't draconian, shutting
down the developer community, etc. That's just silly.
Dewald Pretorius
where it says that it is a violation of their TOS to assist or enable
others to violate their TOS. It is probably just an oversight, and
it's something that should be in a Developer TOS.
But, even if they did that, they would be painting themselves into a
corner if they did not very clearly and very exactly define each
clause of the TOS. Not doing that is simply sending them into a very
dark alley of extremely bad publicity.
Dewald
Andrew Badera
>
> Just thinking, I cannot recall ever having seen in the Twitter TOS
> where it says that it is a violation of their TOS to assist or enable
> others to violate their TOS. It is probably just an oversight, and
> it's something that should be in a Developer TOS.
>
> But, even if they did that, they would be painting themselves into a
> corner if they did not very clearly and very exactly define each
> clause of the TOS. Not doing that is simply sending them into a very
> dark alley of extremely bad publicity.
>
> Dewald
Might qualify as a safe harbor issue ...
Rich
protect their brand but are not interested in stopping people using
Tweet, in fact they are actively encouraging it!
Bill Kocik
On Aug 12, 9:07 am, Duane Roelands <duane.roela...@gmail.com> wrote:
> It doesn't matter who else
> is doing it.
you are obligated to defend them across the board, or you lose them.
You can't selectively defend them by allowing people (or applications,
or business entities) you like to use them and not people you don't.
If you do, the people you selectively pursue will stand up in court
and ask "What actions have you taken against X, Y, and Z, who also use
your trademark?" which is a perfectly relevant legal question to which
the plaintiff's answer had better not be "None - we're only going
after you."
This is how trademark suits are defended against and how they are lost.
Andrew Badera
But _ethically_, morally, it doesn't matter.
Jeremy Darling
On the "point" about aggressively pursuing because they have to. That's a complete and total cop-out, if that were the case then Twitter would be going after ALL offenders and not the select "bad guys", if someone gives twitter a warm fuzzy they view it as ok. According to your statement (and I reviewed the laws a while back on trademarks but will go look again) they can loose their trademark for this action alone.
- Jeremy
PS: I'm still not a lawyer, I still hate the product, but I still hate the thought more. Of course, their C&D order is little more than a notice to disconnect :)
Dean Collins
So has anyone heard from or know any of the other developers? Did they also get an email last night?
Regards,
Dean Collins
de...@MyTwitterButler.com
+1-212-203-4357 New York
+61-2-9016-5642 (Sydney in-dial).
+44-20-3129-6001 (London in-dial).
Dewald Pretorius
applications will need to actively prevent users from violating
Twitter TOS?
For example, would Tweetie and TweetDeck then be in violation if they
did not prevent users from:
a) Publishing the same tweet text more than once in short succession,
b) Publishing tweets that all contain links,
c) Publishing the same tweet text on more than one account, etc.
In the final analysis, and not to alienate the developer community,
the onus should rest on the Twitter account holder to understand and
comply with Twitter TOS, regardless of what tool is put at his
disposal.
This does not mean Twitter cannot and should not put certain clear
definitions of what an application can and cannot do in a Developer
TOS. The aforementioned "enabling others to violate Twitter TOS" is
probably just not one of them, now that I have thought about it a bit
more.
That's just my 2 cents.
Dewald
Neil Ellis
Duane Roelands
Are any of these developers violating the Terms of Service? You are.
Just because another website has "Twitter" in the name doesn't make
their situation the same as yours.
You made a tool for spammers. You get caught. Get over it.
Chris Babcock
Dale Merritt <mogu...@gmail.com> wrote:
> What is Twitters real stance on auto following? In there API they
> prohibit "mass following" so what does that mean exactly. More than
> 1, 100? In my app, I had planned on integrating some meaniful auto
> following
I'm sure that someone could clarify "stance" if you could clarify
"meaningful". :-)
I think what's missing from the API here isn't hard limits, but a
shared vocabulary for describing social design.
We have this in the API TOS:
4. Do not create a bot to promote mass following. Twitter
enables users to find and connect with people. Mass
following does not help users find interesting connections.
Applications found to be promoting valueless mass-following
or following-ponzi schemes will be promptly blacklisted. So
please, spend your time developing something that helps
users find people with interesting connections.
It's clear to me that the intent of the rule is an appeal to social
design. "What is mass following?" is the wrong question. The right
questions would be "What are interesting connections?" and "How do I
help people find them?"
I'm writing a game application that might auto return follows because
it relies on DMs for a communication channel. I don't have any doubts
about where this app stands with this rule. Finding other people who
play the game definitely helps users find interesting connections.
Another app might autofollow those who post on certain topics and
retweet posts that are on-topic for the Bot, effectively amplifying
certain channels and making it easier to find posts and posters. I
think that this is likely an edge case. A bot that doesn't provide any
additional filtering or processing over a saved search doesn't really
serve any purpose other than promoting a mass following, while an
application that adds value to the data stream could develop an immense
following because it "helps users find people with interesting
connections."
Chris Babcock
Rich
there in addition to all the others is that they don't want their name
associated with, what is effectively a Web 2.0 spamming operation.
Dean Collins
Hi Neil
So i guess what Fenwick and Webb are
saying is if i manually log into twitter and click to follow each of the people
who just wrote about my application "thats ok"
http://search.twitter.com/search?q=mytwitterbutler
BUT if i use a little .Net application to do it "Then I'm breaking the ‘Law’ and must - Cease and Desist"
Cheers,
Dean
Neil Ellis
Dossy Shiobara
> So has anyone heard from or know any of the other developers? Did they
> also get an email last night?
IANAL, but, I think the horse has already left the barn for Twitter.
Unless someone is building a short-message service called "Twitter" it's
hard to claim dilution here.
The few years that Twitter hasn't policed the infringing use of their
mark should be reasonable basis for estoppel, too.
However, all legal issues aside, they can still shut down third-party
services from using their API or otherwise accessing their service,
which is probably "stronger" than the actual legal recourse they may be
entitled to.
--
Dossy Shiobara | do...@panoptic.com | http://dossy.org/
Panoptic Computer Network | http://panoptic.com/
"He realized the fastest way to change is to laugh at your own
folly -- then you can let go and quickly move on." (p. 70)
Goblin
application name added to the "posted from" list, is that tacit
permission to use the name? They've been happy to show messages as
posted from Twitteriffic, which uses their name and, it could be
argued, have explicitly allowed this use.
Neil Ellis
Charles
Enforce your trademark evenly or don't enforce it at all. Selective
enforcement is not allowed.
Charles
personal beliefs into a legal context.
So he made a tool for spammers. What does that have to do with
anything?
"First they came for the Spammers and I didn’t speak up, because I
wasn’t a Spammer."
There are two LEGAL issues here
- The Twitter Trademark
- Violation of TOS
Twitter trademark - as has been mentioned by many - you can NOT
selectively enforce a trademark. I don't care what the application's
intended use.
As for the violation of TOS - the section of the TOS that Chris quoted
is explicit, but then goes vague by injecting brevity and 'kindas'.
Strict interpretation would evaluate that Chris's game application is
in violation of the TOS. Unfortunately most of the Twitter TOS is
vague. Every application you write requires an evaluation against
nothing certain. 'Hmmm this service provides value to me, and I
believe it provides value to the Twitter community that it targets,
but will it provide value to the Twitter lawyers?'
I don't know the specifics of the My Twitter Butler application but
there is probably wiggle room.
Neil Ellis
"First they came for the Spammers and I didn’t speak up, because I
wasn’t a Spammer."
Dewald Pretorius
for Twitter.
The first choice would have been simply blackholing the IP address of
Dean's application. However, that's impossible because it's a .Net app
that makes calls from each user's IP address, much like Tweetie and
TweetDeck.
Was it a good move? I don't know.
Now they have created yet another round of potentially bad publicity
for Twitter, and they have put fear and uncertainty in the minds of
all application developers who have a domain name with "twitter" in
it.
Dewald
Bob Fishel
the pedophiles" "First they came for the muderers"
Today's society is to worried about offending someone to acknowledge
the fact that YES there are univseral rights and universal wrongs.
That is not to say that there isn't a difference between premeditated
murder and self defense but it is perfectly acceptable to say that
Premeditated Murder is ALWAYS wrong, even if for some reason it isn't
illegal.
In this case spamming is ALWAYS wrong. Again you need to allow for
definitions. Asking to receive announcements from Dell and then having
Dell follow you is on thing. But having someone autofollow you with
800 different PC resellers becasue you posted a tweet saying "look at
the great deal #Dell has today" is WRONG.
Emotional and personal beliefs SHOULD have a place in legal context
and largely do in our society (read up on Jury nullification if you're
interested)
As another extreme example: Datamining Myspace (if it's possible I've
never worked with it) for 12 year olds names and addresses etc...
COULD have a purposeful use in advertising but if your $12 product is
being used by 99% of people to find children to attack then your
product is WRONG and needs to come off the market.
On Wed, Aug 12, 2009 at 11:31 AM, Charles<charles....@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> I love how in this discussion people keep trying to bring emotion and
> personal beliefs into a legal context.
>
> So he made a tool for spammers. What does that have to do with
> anything?
>
> "First they came for the Spammers and I didn’t speak up, because I
> wasn’t a Spammer."
> *SNIP*
Dewald Pretorius
Perhaps I'm being daft, but how can someone following you be "spam" or
"wrong", regardless of whether it is manual or auto follow?
If you don't follow them, you don't see their tweets, and they cannot
DM you.
In other words, what does it matter if 50,000 undesirable accounts
follow you, except for perhaps a minor personal irritation? Do you
want to be selective about who is allowed and who is not allowed to
follow you?
Dewald
Scott Haneda
T.W.I.T. (The Week In Tech) which is a show by Leo Laporte.
I believe this show pre-dates the use of twit, and nay pre-date
Twitter. I seem to recall at some point Leo Laporte would not even use
Twitter as a result of feeling they were infinging on his name.
I don't know the trademark status with regard to this, but he has been
vocal about it to say the least.
If anything, Laporte has prior art in this one.
--
Scott
Iphone says hello.
Neil Ellis
Honest question honest answer ....
If someone follows me, I'd like to find out about them and see if I'd
like to follow them, I'd like to consider becoming friends with this
person.
How can I do that if 80% of my follows are Real Estate Agents. It
wastes my time, it's annoying and pollutes my inbox. I think you'll
find quite a few people are tired of this annoyance. I'd like to get
to know my followers not have 3000 numpties following me.
ATB
Neil
Bioscience News
Randy
Neil Ellis
really, glad you cleared that up ;-)
Abraham Williams
I pity the fool who wakes up to this thread in the morning :-)
--
Abraham Williams | Community Evangelist | http://web608.org
Hacker | http://abrah.am | http://twitter.com/abraham
Project | http://fireeagle.labs.poseurtech.com
This email is: [ ] blogable [x] ask first [ ] private.
Sent from Fairbanks, Alaska, United States
Neil Ellis
Zac Bowling
> Apparently you fail to recall the "MikeRoweSoft.com" case.
>
The deal with MikeRoweSoft is a different issue then this one. Mike
Rowe was perfectly fine in his use. However when Microsoft sent him a
C&D and said they would pay $
Zac Bowling
Scott Haneda
That seems hard to define.
If I post a tweet mentioning "photography" I get 5-10 new followers in
a few minutes. Use the word "cock" or "pussy" and the auto follow rate
is higher. Hash tags are vulnerable here as well.
In most cases, I've yet to see them come back and solicit me in any
way, so I will never notice them aside from my wrongly inflated follow
metrics.
Under what conditions could any automated system follow someone in a
meaningful way? There is no way to tell context.
My suggestion is that the apps should bring in a list of suggested
followers. The user of the app must review the list, and the
corresponding tweets and decide to follow or not.
Further, after a follow has been established, you should not
communicate with that person in an unsolicited way. Treat it like
email/spam.
If I am bashing a brand and they want to make good on my issues, they
can tweet me. They need not even follow me to start this relationship.
If they want to DM me they can then start that relationship.
For Starbucks to auto follow because I said "starbucks sucks" is not
meaningful.
To me, the nature of auto follow shows a wanting to use Twitter as a
way to market, brand, and build relationships. That much is fine. But
they want to do so in as easy a way possible. That is where I draw the
line.
If you want to market to me, you must put in the time to learn about
me and my value to your brand. Having a robot do it for you is dirty,
and in the end, will probably hurt more than help.
If someone can tell me how automatic auto follow is not analogous to
the end result of a spam network, my opinion may change. In the end,
there is no easy way to build and establish relationships with your
end users. Either do the work, or stop abusing Twitter.
* The above statements are a generality, the OP may have learned a
meaningful way to auto follow that I am not seeing. I do not intend to
call out the OP in any way.
--
Scott
Iphone says hello.
Scott Haneda
company is mentioned on local news; I think that companies ability to
be "clear and unambiguous" becomes as hard as not getting hammered in
5 minutes of watching the news.
--
Scott
Iphone says hello.
On Aug 12, 2009, at 6:04 AM, Dewald Pretorius <dpr...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Logically, isn't it necessary that a clear and unambiguous definition
> of "aggressive following" to be publicly available before any legal
> action can be based on it?
Zac Bowling
> Apparently you fail to recall the "MikeRoweSoft.com" case.
>
The deal with MikeRoweSoft is a different issue then this one. Mike
Rowe was perfectly fine in his use. However when Microsoft sent him a
C&D and said they would pay $100 (IIRC) for his domain. His mistake
was saying "yah, maybe for a $1,000,000.00" in jest. Doing so was
enough to claim that his intent wasn't for his own his own fair use
but to hold Microsoft to pay for it. Microsoft tried to force it to
domain arbitration when it turned into a PR issue for Microsoft being
seen as the big bad bully for taking down a 16 year old kids personal
page, so they backed down and gave him a bunch of free stuff.
Using Twitter in a domain name directly related to a service that
involves Twitter is a whole other issue that pretty much can get you
in a lot of trouble.
Zac Bowling
Scott Haneda
FYI - mashable.com just posted a story on this here
http://mashable.com/2009/08/12/twitter-not-suing-developer/
Interesting to know that if Twitter gets the trademark for "Tweet"
also what about the apps and businesses that have been using it before
the claim like TweetDeck etc etc? Seems they would have a justifiable
claim to the name also? How does that work?
Not sure about the US but where I am if someone has made a stable
reputation from a name they are also entitled to a trademark clause
for it regardless if they officially trademarked it. (in my own words)
"The owner of a common law trademark may also file suit, but an
unregistered mark may be protectable only within the geographical area
within which it has been used or in geographical areas into which it
may be reasonably expected to expand."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trademark
Disclaimer: I'm not a lawyer and don't play one on TV either so seek
your own legal council regarding it.
Scott Haneda
below impossible. If you have a trademark on a name, you MUST protect
it. Failure to protect it, results in loss of the mark.
The quote below, clearly states that Twitter is not going to protect
this mark. That being the case, they will lose the mark, making the
filing and costs associated with it a complete waste.
The statement below very well may invalidate the mark entirely.
On Aug 12, 2009, at 2:52 AM, Rich wrote:
> I'm not aware of this but this link http://blog.twitter.com/2009/07/may-tweets-be-with-you.html
> ,
> published only last month says
>
> "We have applied to trademark Tweet because it is clearly attached to
> Twitter from a brand perspective but we have no intention of "going
> after" the wonderful applications and services that use the word in
> their name when associated with Twitter. In fact, we encourage the use
> of the word Tweet."
--
Scott * If you contact me off list replace talklists@ with scott@ *
avail4one
I am not a lawyer, but everything I have read about this makes the below impossible. If you have a trademark on a name, you MUST protect it. Failure to protect it, results in loss of the mark.
The quote below, clearly states that Twitter is not going to protect this mark. That being the case, they will lose the mark, making the filing and costs associated with it a complete waste.
--
\./'\./ /'\ \ ]. /'\./'\ /'\ /'\./
Scott Haneda
connections to interesting people.
If I am interested in Person X, I can look at who is following him,
and know that others are probably of like minds. I can dig into their
list of followers and following, and build deeper relationships that
are only separated by small degrees.
If I go to someone's account and they have 500 followers, 90% of them
are adult porn and social media experts, not only do I get the wrong
impression as to what that person is about, but I also have a
completely off kilter signal to noise ratio.
On Aug 12, 2009, at 10:07 AM, Dewald Pretorius wrote:
> In other words, what does it matter if 50,000 undesirable accounts
> follow you, except for perhaps a minor personal irritation? Do you
> want to be selective about who is allowed and who is not allowed to
> follow you?
--
Dossy Shiobara
> As another extreme example: Datamining Myspace (if it's possible I've
> never worked with it) for 12 year olds names and addresses etc...
> COULD have a purposeful use in advertising but if your $12 product is
> being used by 99% of people to find children to attack then your
> product is WRONG and needs to come off the market.
Universal wrongs?
YOU are WRONG.
Guns don't kill people. People kill people.
See what I did there?
Dewald Pretorius
Personally I think that is a mutilation of the use and purpose of
Twitter. I surely hope people would not judge me based on who is
following me.
The only way one can maintain a "clean" list of people who follow you
is to block those whom you don't want as followers. It is going to
cause the suspension of many innocent Twitter accounts if people block
others simply because they do not agree with their political views,
the way they comb their hair, or their profession.
Followers do no, zero, nada harm. Just let them be.
Dewald
Adam Cloud
Perhaps I'm being daft, but how can someone following you be "spam" or
"wrong", regardless of whether it is manual or auto follow?
Take into account the fact that many twitter had to reach deals with phone companies for their bulk texts. If they see a substantial increase in texts sent out as result of this, they may have to renegotiate. Re-negotiations waste time :)
Dewald Pretorius
It may be an irritation and it may cost you money, but it is NOT spam.
You opted in to receive the notifications on your phone, and hence it
is NOT spam.
Dewald
owkaye
> me based on who is following me.
They won't unless they are stupid. After all, Twitter gives
you no way to control who follows you, and most people
understand this.
> Followers do no, zero, nada harm.
> Just let them be.
Agreed.
Owkaye
owkaye
> > you be "spam" or "wrong", regardless of whether it is
> > manual or auto follow?
>
> It can be spam if you had your account sent to
> auto-notify your phone or inbox when someone follows you.
You're wrong.
SPAM only exists when you do NOT ask for commercial messages
to be sent to you, and in this case clearly you are asking
for it.
Owkaye
JDG
Internets. Serious business.
Adam Cloud
Maybe one of us could add to one of our Apps the ability to notify after having gone through a screening processes of some sort to see if the account resembles a bot :)
Of course it wont' be perfect because at the beginning of the twitterbot life, they look like a normal user lol
David Fisher
Spam, noise, trash followers, whatever you want to call them. They are
all annoying and not what Twitter or most users want in their
service.
I'm unsure if a company HAS to pursue every trademark infringement to
hold their trademark. Otherwise you could in theory make a company go
bankrupt quickly just by setting up a bunch of shill companies using
similar names and force them to pursue each fully in court. Also there
is no obligation for Twitter to constantly search, identify and sue/
C&D/defend against every company worldwide that uses the name Twitter.
Just seems silly. IANAL however and could be wrong.
dave
Dewald Pretorius
I know this is off the topic of the thread, but along the same vein,
this whole notion that someone can spam one via DMs is absolutely
bloody bullshit.
By virtue of how Twitter works, when you follow someone, you grant
that person permission to DM you. They can send you the biggest load
of crap, they are not spamming you. You opted in to receive DMs from
them.
Your only recourse is to unfollow them, and thereby remove the
permission you granted them.
Dewald
On Aug 12, 3:56 pm, Adam Cloud <cloudy...@gmail.com> wrote:
> **sigh** Dewald, on a technicality, you're completely right. We did opt in.
> It was originally a convenience to opt int, so you knew you were being
> followed. However since the count of bots has increased, it's now an
> inconvenience to constantly get follow emails\texts from bots. Perhaps they
> could rename it, now, to "Check box to increase twitter to inbox\phone
> traffic"
>
> Maybe one of us could add to one of our Apps the ability to notify
owkaye
> > > me based on who is following me.
> >
> > They won't unless they are stupid. After all, Twitter
> > gives you no way to control who follows you, and most
> > people understand this.
>
> in the ass porn bot or "social media expert" following
> 100x more people than follow them follows me, i block
> them. then they can't follow me.
I guess I care so little about who is following me that I
never bothered to learn about this. Now that I know about
it I still have no use for it, and I never will ... but it's
good to know it's available to others I guess.
Owkaye
Dewald Pretorius
spam.
I am fully aware that most people would label as "spam" any DM that
they do not like.
Scott Haneda
> Personally I think that is a mutilation of the use and purpose of
> Twitter. I surely hope people would not judge me based on who is
> following me.
I would not judge you. No, I never take it that far. However,
consider if a politician was on Twitter, and a mass follow of spam
porn bots hit that person up. People unlike you and I, and others on
the dev list here, very well will get the wrong impression, simply for
lack of understanding how this all works.
Whether it is a mutilation of the use and purpose, I can certainly see
your point. Though to be honest, I do not know a person who has not
looked up one person, to find who they follow and who follows them.
It very much is the entire premise of myspace, facebook, and linked in.
I personally use it for that purpose all the time, though I have
learned based on username and profile picture how to discern a real
user and a bot pretty easily with relatively good accuracy.
It does muddy the pool, and make me have more pages of stuff to wade
through.
> The only way one can maintain a "clean" list of people who follow you
> is to block those whom you don't want as followers.
Also, you can privatize your account, which to be honest, I wish was
not even an option, as that indeed is a mutilation of the use and
purpose of twitter in my humble opinion.
But tell me how feasible it is to remove followers once you get past a
few thousand?
> It is going to
> cause the suspension of many innocent Twitter accounts if people block
> others simply because they do not agree with their political views,
> the way they comb their hair, or their profession.
Can you elaborate on this? How does a block of a twitter account end
up as a account suspension? Do multiple blocks tally up and end up
being used as a way to suspend an account?
> Followers do no, zero, nada harm. Just let them be.
I think I have shown how they do in fact harm. Even at a very basic
level, if a army of bots were to follow you, say, a million of them,
what would you do? You yourself would look like part of the army, you
would not be able to maintain that account easily, if you put aside
your ability to programatically remove those bots.
Follower and following as also an at a glance metric I use to see how
interesting someone may be. If they have 5000 followers, but only
follow back 100, I can gauge immediately the type of twitter use that
person is. If they have 5000 followers and around the same following
counts, I know there is no way they are engaging all 5000 of those
people, and that account has less value to me.
These are pretty rough generalizations, but I certainly do not agree
with the "no harm" statement. It just depends on your use and how you
define harm, which to me is defined as inconvenience.
> On Aug 12, 3:28 pm, Scott Haneda <talkli...@newgeo.com> wrote:
>> If I go to someone's account and they have 500 followers, 90% of them
>> are adult porn and social media experts, not only do I get the wrong
>> impression as to what that person is about, but I also have a
>> completely off kilter signal to noise ratio.
--
Scott Haneda
On Aug 12, 2009, at 11:54 AM, JDG wrote:
> sure they do. it's called "blocking". every time a pain in the ass
> porn bot or "social media expert" following 100x more people than
> follow them follows me, i block them. then they can't follow me.
--
Adam Cloud
They're not going to be able to force dean to transfer his domain to them. His domain name isn't confusing, as twitter.com as well established. He also has a legitimate claim to the domain, regardless of how legitimate the service that serves as that claim may be. Perhaps they should go in the direction of the legal gray area that is his service?
@DewaldP,
I don't think i referred to people i followed myself, if i did it was done by mistake. I completely agree with the DM situation. You followed them yourselves, you took the action to do it, you can deal with the effects of that decision.
I'm only talking about the notify traffic generated by being followed by accounts that twitter wouldn't consider legitimate accounts. I realize you're a little biased since many of the features you offer on the professional version of your twitter app would be rendered "not necessary" if the spam traffic was eliminated. "That girl deserved to have her purse stolen because she had it out there for everyone to see" is how i see "follow spam".
----
Clarification, when i've used the word inbox, i'm referring to the email your registered your account on, not your twitter DM inbox.
Dewald Pretorius
room.
Vincent Wright
that this could become an uncomfortable matter for MyTwitterButler
and/or Twitter, I nonetheless, decided to ask the question regarding
the 1942 movie Bambi:
"Would Twitter Sue Bambi For Being Twitterpated? :-) ":
http://mylinkingpowerforum.ning.com/group/twitterpated/forum/topics/would-twitter-sue-bambi-for
Thanks, and Keep STRONG!!
Vincent Wright
Director Of Community
MyLinkingPowerForum.ning.com |
Robert Fishel
There are universal wrongs. Guns aren't on of them. Premeditated murder is.
So is spam.
Maybe I'm slow but what are you trying to get at?
-Bob
On Wed, Aug 12, 2009 at 2:32 PM, Dossy Shiobara<do...@panoptic.com> wrote:
>
*SNIP*
David Fisher
No. Do you not understand that Trademark infringements occur between
things that could be mistaken for each other or in the same industry,
diluting a brand?
A Disney film from the 1940's has what to do with a 3rd part
application for a 2006-present social network?
There is a CLEAR connection between MyTwitterButler and Twitter.
MyTwitterButler is using Twitter as the basis for their business and
clearly in the same brand space.
This isn't uncomfortable for Twitter or MyTwitterButler.
Were you asleep for the whole Apple Computers v Apple Music thing? As
long as they weren't in similar spaces (computers weren't supposed to
make sounds/music initially) everything was ok, but then once Apple
got into music, the stuff got nuts and went to court. No Apple (fruit)
companies were sued however or sent notices.
You guys are so stupid this makes my head hurt.
david
On Aug 12, 3:18 pm, Vincent Wright <mylinkedinpowerfo...@gmail.com>
wrote:
> that this could become an uncomfortable matter for MyTwitterButler
> and/or Twitter, I nonetheless, decided to ask the question regarding
> the 1942 movie Bambi:
Scott Haneda
On Aug 12, 2009, at 12:18 PM, Vincent Wright wrote:
> "Would Twitter Sue Bambi For Being Twitterpated? :-) ":
> http://mylinkingpowerforum.ning.com/group/twitterpated/forum/topics/would-twitter-sue-bambi-for
--
Dossy Shiobara
>
> None of us actually know how this might turn out but, even recognizing
> that this could become an uncomfortable matter for MyTwitterButler
> and/or Twitter, I nonetheless, decided to ask the question regarding
> the 1942 movie Bambi:
> "Would Twitter Sue Bambi For Being Twitterpated? :-) ":
> http://mylinkingpowerforum.ning.com/group/twitterpated/forum/topics/would-twitter-sue-bambi-for
LMAO, you win at the intarwebs, sir.
All these Twitter spammers are just looking for a little twitterpation,
y' know? That's why they use those sexy avatar pics. It's bait for
twitterpation.