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Tech Site Sues Ex-Employee, Claiming Rights To His Twitter Account

Posted by timothy on from the depends-what-the-meaning-of-his-is dept.

nonprofiteer writes "Noah Kravitz worked as a mobile phone reviewer for a tech website called Phonedog for four and a half years. While there, he started a Twitter account (of his own volition) with the handle @PhoneDog_Noah to tweet his stories and videos for the site as well as personal stuff about sports, food, music, etc. When he left Phonedog, he had approximately 17,000 followers and changed his Twitter handle to @noahkravitz. This summer, Phonedog started barking that it wanted the Twitter account back, and sued Kravitz, valuing the account at $340,000 (!), or $2.50 per follower per month. Kravitz claims the Twitter account was his own property. A California judge ruled that the case can proceed and theoretically go to trial. Meanwhile, Kravitz continues to tweet."

26 of 267 comments (clear)

  1. It was part of his job by CmdrPony · · Score: 4, Interesting

    He created the Twitter account as part of his job, so it does belong the company. Valuing those followers at $2.50 really isn't much either, and I can easily see that such group of targeted followers is worth that (I work in advertising too).

    This seems like a really straight-forward case. The Twitter account belongs to Phonedog.

    1. Re:It was part of his job by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      It doesn't sound like the company asked him to do it.

      Sounds more like he setup a personal account and was just giving his own articles some free PR.

      Putting PhoneDog in the username is pretty stupid though and will definitely hurt his case.

    2. Re:It was part of his job by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

      RTFA: it was not part of his job. He removed the name of the company from the handle when he left. That's all there is to it.

    3. Re:It was part of his job by omnichad · · Score: 4, Insightful

      He even used Phonedog in his original handle, which further proves that this is "official." If it weren't somehow official, his employer would have claimed trademark violation on his Twitter account while he was still employed.
       
      I think this is a case of an ex-employee who didn't realize he was putting in free overtime.

    4. Re:It was part of his job by reebmmm · · Score: 4, Insightful

      That's not the way things work, usually. If he cultivated his followers and created content using company resources (time, equipment, etc.) then the company probably has some right to it. But, it may partially depend on his employment agreement. His employment agreement probably says what it is they own in the context of content he created on the job.

      This is the reason that smart people don't use company resources to do creative things lest they be owned by their employer.

    5. Re:It was part of his job by CmdrPony · · Score: 5, Insightful

      It doesn't matter if he was specifically asked to do so. He used the company's resources and time to make it, used company's name as part of his handle and it definitely was something directly linked to Phonedog. If you do something at your work time, it usually does belong to the company. It's so with your personal projects done at work time too. Hell, in some places your personal projects done outside your work time belong to your employer too.

    6. Re:It was part of his job by Snotman · · Score: 3, Insightful

      You are coming to a conclusion backwards. Because he had a twitter account with the company's name in it and they did not pursue a trademark violation, this does not mean that he did it with their permission. How do you reach this conclusion when it could be Phonedog did not protect their mark and he was improperly using their mark. If anything, I would be afraid if I was phonedog as being seen as complacent about enforcing their marks.It seems their may be a gray area here.

      However, may be like software development, if his tweeting was done with company resources, it may indeed be Phonedog's to keep.

    7. Re:It was part of his job by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      The company never took any responsibility or control over the account. He made a personal account and tweeted what he felt like, which was sometimes work related. The people weren't signing up to follow the company, they were signing up to follow him.

      "If person would wanted to have own personal twitter, you should..."
      If a company wants an official twitter, then they can make one instead of claiming a personal one that they never managed and was only tangentially related to their business.

    8. Re:It was part of his job by Hentes · · Score: 5, Insightful

      By that logic a company could claim the car you use to get to work, or your laptop you use in your workplace. He didn't develop anything.

    9. Re:It was part of his job by nomel · · Score: 3, Informative

      We don't know what his employment that he signed when he started said, so everything here is assumption.

      Every company I've worked for (except my first job, round table) had a very clear agreement in the employment contract that anything I made during work hours belonged to the company, and any inventions I made outside outside of work hours had pretty strong limitations (it couldn't be, at all, related to my job). If he signed something even similar to all of the contracts I've signed, the account belongs to them.

    10. Re:It was part of his job by Fnord666 · · Score: 4, Insightful

      He used the company's resources and time to make it,...

      If you do something at your work time,...

      Would you mind providing a citation for this? I didn't see anything in TFA that indicated he used any company time or resources to maintain the (arguably his) blog.

      --
      'The tyrant will always find pretext for his tyranny.' - Aesop's Fables
    11. Re:It was part of his job by amalek · · Score: 3, Informative

      I worked for a software dev company before, quite well known, and in my contract was a specific clause stating *anything* I produced, no matter where and when, would be considered the intellectual property of the company. They were pretty cool guys in general so I questioned the motivation behind it some months into my employment. Turns out they'd been burned badly before by having some of their assets reused and sold off, and henceforth used that clause as a contractual safety net. In practise however, things were generally totally open and innovative with a lot of devs working on separate projects; the enforcement of this clause depended on your own standing and relationship with the company. In other words, it's very possible he had this in his contract and for precisely the same reasons this case has gone to court.

    12. Re:It was part of his job by NeoMorphy · · Score: 3, Informative

      And you actually signed this agreement ???!

      These kind of contracts are pretty common, either you sign it or no job. It sucks, but who's going to make their family starve and become a martyr for the cause? Drug tests, background checks, contracts, all of the big companies do it. As long as the corporations are in power you'll have to just deal with it, for now.

    13. Re:It was part of his job by mysidia · · Score: 5, Insightful

      and if its related to your job but done out side of work time they own it too

      No... they own copyright to content you produce related to your job, as "work for hire". They don't own assets you create outside of work that you use in a manner related to your job.

      For example... if your job entails visiting clients; your company doesn't suddenly own your personal car, when you use it one day to drive to a client's office. If you use your personal e-mail account to contact a prospect that you happen to be friends with, or you provide your e-mail address or personal phone number as contact details for a client, and you wind up signing them up... your company doesn't suddenly own your e-mail account or your home phone number.

      They own the work that you provided to them, for example, the sale. They don't own personal property leveraged to do so.

      So... they could own the copyright to all the twitter posts, but it's still your account. What they could do is demand you take down all the twitter posts from your account that contain their intellectual property.

      Also.... you don't own the Twitter account in the first place, actually, Twitter owns it their ToS says so: All right, title, and interest in and to the Services (excluding Content provided by users) are and will remain the exclusive property of Twitter and its licensors..

    14. Re:It was part of his job by Cyberllama · · Score: 3, Insightful

      I don't know how you use company resources to make a twitter account, and there's no real indication that he used company time either. He used their name as a way to distinguish himself from the guy who had @Noah already, but this was in the early days of twitter so there was no company policy on twitter. There was basically "no rule against it". There's a difference beween saying "personal projects" belong to your employer, and saying "Everything you do belongs to us". If he put his employers name in his Facebook profile, would they have rights to that?

      I think part of your perspective is that you're assuming the reason he got so many followers is because he presented himself as "Phonedog Noah" instead of just "Noah Kravitz" and therefore attracted people looking for "Phonedog". However this doesn't seem to be the case, as he's added another 4,000 followers since leaving Phonedog and changing his twitter handle. By all accounts, this is his personal twitter account and the only thing linking it to his former employer is simply the fact that he identified with them enough to have originally included their name as part of his handle.

  2. Don't ever mix personal and employer projects by Fujisawa+Sensei · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Don't ever mix personal and employer projects, ever.

    Especially don't use your employer's name or trademarks in your personal projects.

    Hell in some states, depending on your terms of employment, even your personal projects can be seized by the company.

    --
    If someone is passing you on the right, you are an asshole for driving in the wrong lane.
    1. Re:Don't ever mix personal and employer projects by Snotman · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Another rule is to not do anything personal on company resources. It is considered theirs because you did it on their resources which they consider their time too which means you did whatever for the benefit of them.

  3. Oh, the irony ... by Infernal+Device · · Score: 5, Interesting

    If they win, it may damage their Twitter reputation more than just leaving it alone.

    17,000 followers can spam a Twitter account pretty heavily.

    --
    "My God...it's full of trolls!"
    1. Re:Oh, the irony ... by multiben · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Yes I agree completely. PR is a funny beast and someone at PhoneDog clearly doesn't understand that. People in general don't like seeing companies take petty action against employees (whether rightly or not). The damage they do to their brand will likely outweigh the value of the Twitter account they are trying to get their hands on. The longer this goes on, the worse the damage. If they weren't able to do this out of court amicably then they should have dropped it and gone on.

  4. Easy solution by rs1n · · Score: 5, Insightful

    All he needs to do is create a new account and tweet about the issue. "I am moving to a new twitter handle nsert new handle here so please update accordingly if you would like to follow me after this handle is returned to Phonedog" Problem solved

    1. Re:Easy solution by exploder · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Sounds easy and cute, but if the court rules that the twitter account in fact did belong to Phonedog, and in fact was worth $2.50 per follower, could the guy be sued for deliberately wrecking the value of the account?

      IANAL, but I'd be interested to hear a lawyer's comments: if you're in possession of some asset and are sued for ownership, and you subsequently and intentionally ruin the value of that asset, won't the court take a pretty dim view?

      --
      Yo dawg, I heard you like the Ackermann function, so OH GOD OH GOD OH GOD
    2. Re:Easy solution by mark-t · · Score: 3, Interesting

      How would that be deliberately wrecking the value of the account?

      He would be announcing that he is leaving the company (true). He would be announcing that phonedog would be taking over ownership of the account (true). He would be saying he would be opening a personal account (true), and finally, and most importantly, he would not be compelling anybody to follow him... simply advising them that *IF* they wished to continue to do so, they would need to follow his new account, since he would no longer be personally commanding that one. He would not be deliberately sabotaging anything... and people who want to follow the company could continue to follow the phonedog account.

      --
      File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
  5. Please Return to Your Slave Labor Cell by 7am by h00manist · · Score: 4, Funny

    You are aware your DNA has been copyrighted and patented by Humans-Are-US. As such all your labor and product are derivative works and must be produced and immediately stored directly in our Patented Human DNA production facilites.

    As such we require your labor services by tomorrow at 7am. Please report to your Personal DNA Labor Slave Cell by 7am. Irregularities will result in immedia removal of all temporary-credit and life sustainment system access rights.

    Thank you
    Our Beloved Patent Lord

    --
    Build your own energy sources from scratch. http://otherpower.com/
  6. Let them have the handle by msobkow · · Score: 3, Insightful

    They have the right to the handle with PhoneDog in it. Let them have it. But he doesn't use that handle any more; they don't have a right to his personal account.

    --
    I do not fail; I succeed at finding out what does not work.
  7. Twitter Terms of Service by Ken+D · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Twitter clearly indicates in their ToS that the service can only be used if you can enter a binding contractual relationship with Twitter.

    Unless the company gave him the ability to enter a contract with Twitter on the company's behalf, then the account is either in violation of the ToS, or it is personal.

    Twitter gives the company various options for dealing with an account that infringes their marks.

    1. Re:Twitter Terms of Service by Narcocide · · Score: 5, Insightful

      If only I had mod points. Why does nobody read the terms of service? All these "corporate" Twitter/Facebook/whatever accounts that these corporations think they own are in *complete* violation of the terms of service of those very sites. The only way this company could keep the account legally in the first place is if they also keep the employee who goes with it.