You own your tweets, says Twitter, but we can use it too

New Delhi, September 12: You own your tweets, says Twitter, but we can use it too. Call it a twitter-esque way of cleansing its Terms of Service of murky jargon or a ploy to avoid the sort of hullabaloo that Facebook last year found itself in. Twitter has revised its Terms of Service to clarify among others the legalese about the ownership of tweets: "what's yours is yours — you own your content."

 

On its website Twitter says, “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, non-exclusive, royalty-free license (with the right to sublicense) to use, copy, reproduce, process, adapt, modify, publish, transmit, display and distribute such Content in any and all media or distribution methods (now known or later developed)”.
“This license is you authorizing us to make your Tweets available to the rest of the world and to let others do the same. But what’s yours is yours – you own your content” it further says.
But here comes the truth, “You agree that this license includes the right for Twitter to make such Content available to other companies, organizations or individuals who partner with Twitter for the syndication, broadcast, distribution or publication of such Content on other media and services, subject to our terms and conditions for such Content use”.
And says further, “Such additional uses by Twitter, or other companies, organizations or individuals who partner with Twitter, may be made with no compensation paid to you with respect to the Content that you submit, post, transmit or otherwise make available through the Services”.
As to whether the 140-character tweets come under the ambit of copyright laws is a bone of contention in itself, discussion on what Twitter means when it says “you own your content” are picking up in blogosphere.
There are certain commentators who opine that the twitter-speak of ownership may just be an attempt to placate famous twittering authors and does not exactly mean it. As short phrases don't qualify for copyright protection under U.S. Copyright law, they say, Twitter has the privilege to come up with a book a featuring ‘selected’ tweets.