Twitter is now using legal authority to delete tweets that reportedly contains copyrighted materials, which now includes stolen jokes.
According to Digital Trends, Olga Lexell, a Los Angeles freelance writer, tweeted a joke via her Twitter account on July 9 which read: "Saw someone spill their high end juice cleanse all over the sidewalk and now I know god is on my side." On Saturday, July 25, twitter user @PlagiarismBad revealed that Twitter has deleted the re-tweeted joke. Twitter reportedly replaced it with an explanation that the messages were "withheld in response to a report from the copyright holder." The company also linked the deleted messages to the Twitter's "Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) and Copyright" policy page.
It seems that Lexell requested Twitter to remove the messages containing her joke, reports the Verge. "I simply explained to Twitter that as a freelance writer I make my living writing jokes (and I use some of my tweets to test out jokes in my other writing). I then explained that as such, the jokes are my intellectual property, and that the users in question did not have my permission to repost them without giving me credit," explained Lexell. The freelance writer added that the Twitter accounts using her tweeted jokes were mostly "spam accounts that repost tons of other people's jokes every day." Lexell also revealed that she has requested similar requests from Twitter before.
The Verge report further mentioned how Twitter has a system of handling copyright infringement claims. Twitter users can simply file a claim via the site's web form and the company's team handling such claims will sort through the requests to check which one is a valid claim. The offending users are also given ten days to file a counter notice. DMCA related requests are also published by Twitter on the website Chilling Effects. Although this particular news has yet to be published on the site.
