Sunbelt Blog

Twitter Identity Theft, Parodies, and Copyright Infringement

Identity theft, parodies, and copyright infringement have quickly made their way into the Twitterverse, bringing with them legal implications and cause for concern. Not only does Twitter, and social media sites in general, make it possible for imposters to spread misinformation or damage reputations, companies are concerned with their intellectual property and logos.

Sports stars and celebrities have been concerned with Twitter identity theft for a while now. After all, anyone can create a Twitter user account and pretend to be whoever they want. For example, go into Twitter and enter "Oprah" into the Find People link and you'll see a slew of wannabe Oprahs including the real "Twitter verified" Oprah (@oprah) as well as users who are clearly imposters with name variations, assorted punctuation marks, and misspellings. Most use pictures of Oprah as their avatars. And it works. Some of these imposters have tens of thousands of followers!

So, what's wrong with creating a fake celebrity account and pretending to be the celebrity in question? What's wrong with using someone else's image as an avatar and then tweeting as if you were that person? These are rhetorical questions as we all know that doing so is wrong. But a question of right or wrong doesn't bother Twitter identity thieves. And they don't only target well-known celebrities. Baseball coaches, newspaper reporters, and students have all been victims of social media identity theft. Whether the intent is "a joke" or outright cyberbullying, Twitter imposters have caused harm to their victims.

Twitter has been experimenting with a "verification" feature to let users know if a Twitter user is really who that user says he is. Currently, this feature is used on a case-by-case basis, primarily for prominent users such as celebrities and politicians.

On the other hand, parody accounts are allowed on Twitter. Twitter's impersonation policy states the following:
"Impersonation is pretending to be another person or business as entertainment or in order to deceive. Non-parody impersonation is a violation of the Twitter Rules.

The standard for defining parody is "would a reasonable person be aware that it's a joke?" An account may be guilty of impersonation if it confuses or misleads others-accounts with the clear INTENT to confuse or mislead may be permanently suspended."

The twitter account "@jackbauer" parodies Jack Bauer of Fox's hit show, 24. The account's bio says, "If everyone listened to my instructions, it'd be called '12'." Does anyone believe that a television character is really tweeting? Not likely. Is there an intent to confuse or mislead? Not likely. This is an example of a parody account. It's a joke account that is allowed under Twitter's impersonation policy.

Just as impersonation and parody are separate, yet closely related, so are parody and copyright infringement. One of the tests between parody and infringement is whether the parody is clever enough to avoid confusion as to whether it is the original or a spoof.

Companies and individuals have filed lawsuits against Twitter for copyright infringement and identity theft. According to the Connecticut Law Tribune, Oneok, a natural gas distributor, alleged trademark infringement against Twitter after discovering an anonymous user using the user name "Oneok_i" along with the Oneok logo. The lawsuit was later withdrawn after Twitter closed the other account. Another lawsuit, filed by Tony LaRussa, baseball manager of the St. Louis Cardinals, was filed when LaRussa discovered an imposter who was tweeting using his identity. The account was suspended and the lawsuit withdrawn.

Impersonation, parodies, and copyright infringement are likely to continue as Twitter grows. While the medium is relatively new, these issues are not. Your thoughts? We'd love to get the discussion going.