Twitter Lawsuit Over Followers

[sajonthrowpiks]

now corporations want the right to own people? they already have more rights than regular citizens, so why not?

[SummerInTahoe]

Twitter followers belong to Twitter, Inc. After all.. they can easily just suspend the account and be done with it.

[hardcoremarinecor100]

@ItJusGot_Real . . .

[Ryoka242]

People do Not Equal Property. this is not the 1800s Having Slaves Is Illegal.

[TheCreeperhunter]

Never did like Twitter....

[HorrorNetwork]

twitter is for fags

[belltolls1984]

What is this world coming too? I mean really??!!

[KICKNITentertainment]

Fuck Twitter, I've never even been on that website. No interest.

[sitiwrattz]

i was working on new years eve and I thought that jayar had come into the place and i about hugged him until i figure out it wasnt him



[DeathtoRaiden1]

For fucks sake...

I'd take Blade Runner's "future" over this social networking bullshit any day.

[chrlpolk]

They completely dodge the obvious: The Twitter followers can unfollow him at any time.  Twitter followers are not a commodity, there are real people involved.

[lestliness]

@chrlpolk Look at it from this perspective.. say you write a magazine for a company and this magazine has subscribers.. Do you get to quite and continue the magazine under another name? No, those subscribers belong to the company.

[chrlpolk]

@lestliness The subscribers are people; they aren't owned. What we are referring to is the subscription contract.

Twitter subscribers are subscribed to the Twitter service. Who they follow on Twitter is regulated by Twitter's policy; not other companies who also use Twitter.

Unless the company hired him to create the page, his contract is only with Twitter. If people join because of his associations, and he changes his associations, it is up to those individuals to stay or leave.

[chrlpolk]

@lestliness If we exanded the theory - would one be able to claim half the Twitter followers as marital property? Afterall, some of those people are only on my ex-wife's contact list because of our association!

The fact is, we do not "own" our accounts. Not on Twitter, not on Facebook, not on Youtube. Each of the companies own all of the subscription contracts that we individually make when we sign up to use the service, None of it belongs to us.

[WoodCroftwoodcroft]

Are Hugh Laurie's fans property of the producers of House?

[lex811117]

IDK research and other work products (even intangibles) are considered property of the company. With the new medias I think it will be hard to make this case if they did not spell it out in the beginning. I think this leads to companies specifying that any twittering done even remotely related to work is considered work product and is their property, but not them winning the lawsuit.

[freedomwv]

This is about greed and hardcore capitalism. The internet is all about money for some people.

[AndrewMacedonia]

fuck thats like slavery twitter does not own any one

[wwehalomixer]

people are not property its the thirteenth ammendment

[hockeyguy1998]

Noah is awesome I can't believe they are suing him:(

[religiousabuse]

this has the potential to be really bad president

[WoWDiinale]

The CC is definitely right.

[jasondesante]

stop making stories about twitter

[flintr94]

2:00 so cute

[MisterRea1]

When a salesperson leaves one company and goes to work for a competitor, he's going to take his rolodex with him. Sales people change firms, they try to bring their clients with them... how is that any different that these twitter accounts?

[Braybann]

Wow! I love Noah he was a welcomed addition to TechnoBuffalo! If he loses this he will be crushed!

[Gr4yW0rld]

Behold the future, where people are property, corporations can talk, and americans have no freedom or rights.

Yay Future.... dammit

[ThatGuy1208]

I used to like phonedog

[xaalan]

They are following his ideas, which are his own. To me, they are his.

[AramDaniel1]

they will be suing you for calling the pope the antichrist

[HasanSIM14]

This is absolutely terrible for PhoneDog. They used to be good when they had Noah, but now they suck. Having said that, I don't think much of his new company either. I get my tech news from The Verge which is far better.

[Leadman1989]

Oh shit I think I knew about that guy. I think he now works with technobuffalo.

[62netty]

IMHO this whole twitter craze is causing more problems than it's worth.

[Phi1618033]

I'd follow Ana into a freaking minefield, TYT or no TYT.

[FranniePoohFrench]

This Is Going To Be A Very Interesting Lawsuit ...

[ViolentRiC]

@FranniePoohFrench

...by FranniePoohFrench

(approximately 0 people will get why I just did that)

[TalonX1982]

they're suing him for almost 60,000 dollars..for...Twitter...reall­y? I mean, REALLY?

[werewolf873]

@TalonX1982 yarly.

[philipsidney]

It must be big news for the Twitter followers to find out that they are somebody's property.

[baptsan]

Cenk can make real fun, from stupid things.

[TooManyHips]

The problem with this entire argument is that PhoneDog initially said ok to his keeping his followers. They only got mad AFTER they refused to pay him an agreed upon parting sum and he took THEM to court. Now all of a sudden it's "oh yeah well I can sue you too!!" If Noah had any indication this was going to turn litigious he probably would've started a new acct from the getgo. Btw I follow Noah because he's interesting. I don't care WHO he works for.

[Burghlax]

Of Coooouuuurrrrsssseeeee

[chaching289]

now following! #teamfollowback @jessiejive

[NJMetsHero]

His new site gains viewership because of the Twitter follows. The viewership leads to more ads viewed, and more money made. He took what was an asset for PhoneDog and made it an asset for TechnoBuffalo, the site he works for now. It's just crazy because this is completely unprecedented. What is a Twitter follower actually worth to a website?

[Nebbyker]

Come on guys, it's corporate america, that's how it works! Did you see what happened to the creater of Brats girls? Got sued by Barbie and even though he created the Brats girls on his own spare time has to pay a fortune because it was created while he also worked for Barbie.

[strongpimphand]

In *real* life, many jobs have no-compete clauses and clauses that do not allow you to take your ideas/customers/clients with you.

Seems like the same thing....just behind a twitter handle.

Cenk looked like he was going to touch on it....but got derailed by his own comedy. That was a company twitter account. He was hired to advertise via twitter. He didn't create a new account - he changed his company's account's name. Not cool. I think he's going to lose in court potentially.

[Nebbyker]

@strongpimphand Yeah that sounds about right. He did acquire the followers using the company name, it's greedy for them to expect that kind of money for this, but at the same time he is at least partially responsible, to be perfectly clean he should have created another act and ask the followers to switch to the new act.

[MythicEpitaph]

Right, because I'm sure Noah signed a contract that said "We own you, and all the people you associate with for the rest of your life". Gimme a fuckin break.

[frankscola]

I agree with Ana,  Companies shouldn't get the rights to sew over social on line interactions of tweets.

[Shesblessed84]

ADVERTISEMENTS SUCK!!!!

[damibru1]

Let's get real! He did use the company name and as a result of that he got all these followers who he would't have gotten otherwise!

[macrent2]

Well, this is the United States of America where US corperations and companies are treated better and have many more rights than her own citizens, so... i'm not suprised!

[35FILMPROJECTION11]

Twitter?

[Clanki]

So basicly the people on Twitter are owned by a company?

I wish I was following him on twitter. I would sue the company for claiming to own me like a slave. Sue for slavery >:3

[ViolentRiC]

@Clanki

You know how we have Godwin's law about bringing nazis/Hitler into online debates.

I think we should have RiC's law for doing the same thing with slavery.

Yeah, I know you were being facetious, but I didn't feel like waiting til a better example of someone invoking RiC's law to introduce RiC's law.

I'm not budging on the name.

[Clanki]

@ViolentRiC Come on it just sounds so stupid "we own the twitter followers"

And no I don't know "Godwin's law"

Nor do I know what RiC's law is nor what it stands for.

And what name are you not budging on and why should I care?

[ViolentRiC]

@Clanki

Wait, you're asking me to elaborate while suggesting you don't care? Well that's different.

I could tell you what Godwin's law is, but there' a perfectly good internet out there.

I wouldn't worry about it.

[nuggz503]

twitter is for pedophiles

[ViolentRiC]

@nuggz503

Everything's for paedophiles.

Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, Skype, online gaming, going shopping, walking the dog.

Jealous?

[mrfishsticklover]

3:13 sameless plug!

[CrisKG125]

Boys have a penis and Girls have a vagina.

[goodyoj]

@CrisKG125 not in Vegas

[Aulpa]

you know what i'd do. create a different twitter account but tell everyone that you're not tweeting for the company any more. and why are they suing again? he didn't make money off twitter. it's not like he was drawing business away from phonedog. it's a ridiculous lawsuit and shows that someone has an enormous stick up their ass

also if a company tried to tell me it "owns" me as a follower i'd say "FU" and unfollow and then tweet, status update and g+ about that ass hat company

[underbjorn]

Now that we know Taliban and CIA flame eachother on Twitter...

.

Will the Taliban sue ex-Taliban for bringing all allies on Twitter with him, :O

Will the CIA sue a defector for the same thing, :O

[Wethewax]

Tweeting = work......?????

LMFAO

[katmannsson]

@Wethewax I mean, I want that job.

[GOLDENTEMPLE68]

I agree that nobody wud know her. But its unmoral to sew somebody for it. Dwayne johnson got famous in wrestling but he quit and makes millions making movies. So wud vince mcmahon sew him because his company made the rock famous??? Where does 1 end and the other begin?

[Aulpa]

@GOLDENTEMPLE68 i fail to see how this is a morality issue. at best its company policy infringement.

[Cuddlebunzzzz]

that's what corporate America thinks of us. not only are we just property to them, but we're only worth $2.50 to them.

[TheeRawbee]

cmon! other peoples online activity cannot be deemed to be property by anyone. to allow this leads to much larger problems concerning the internet and personal privacy. You mean to tell me that any facebook friends or youtube subscribers this guy got during the same also belong to phonedog? slippery slope guys, very slippery indeed.

[Scorch2011]

No Ana. People find your TITS interesting. Get it straight.

[Saucypants1000]

I wonder where did they get the number $2.50? and Cenk made a good point, what money is he making from The Tweeter?

[HamdanAlRasam]

Imagine if apple had sued Steve Jobs over his twitter followers when he left apple a few months before his death.

People would have gone crazy and this is the same situation just with someone named Noah Kravitz.

[Zaphod23]

This could be great for employees. People with large, relevant followers would look good to many companies.

[ttrop]

you can't own people

[MALIRIPPA]

wow i hate twitter and facebook. why would people use that shit?

and then your surprised to find out the goverment use them to spy on you

Duuh dumbass

[willia3r]

@MALIRIPPA

If you owned a business and was trying to acquire potential customers it would probably make sense to open a twitter and/or facebook account.

If you are a revolutionary or a regular critic of government or big business, then it probably wouldn't make sense to put yourself "on the grid" with a twitter or facebook account.

[SupaAmi]

They're suing him because he changed his name. When he called himself PhoneDogNoah, he was advertising the company through his Twitter name, which gives the company free PR. Now that he changed his name to something else, they're no longer making any profits off his tweets and that's why they're mad. Basically, they want him to keep promoting them for free through his Twitter name even though he doesn't WORK for them anymore. They think they own HIM and his followers. Sickening.

[Fifty1stState]

If Anna wasn't on TYT then it would be Anna who? LoL

[willia3r]

@Fifty1stState

Exactly. She would be just another face on a planet of over 6 billion people.

[Fifty1stState]

@willia3r True. Luck for us then she's on TYT!

[ericsean67]

I have never made a cent on Twitter. The Company has no rights unless specified up front. BTW you can follow me @lostbull

[DHVester]

BULLSHIT!! i love Noah.. he's freaking funny :)

[andiconda3]

Some companies have the idea that they do own their customers. Many businesses have employees sign non-compete agreements so that if some one leaves they don't take customers with them.

If this guy signed a non-compete, I could see them having a small chance at winning the law suit.

[duleekrauser]

Fuck! Great way to start the new year.

A company acting retarded and filing a bullshit lawsuit.

[mmr11027]

He dropped Phonedog from his handle; the followers can drop him from their feed. Had he kept the same handle, they might have had a reason for a claim, but not anymore.

[DisturbedHavok]

Twitter was the thing created by people who think "I want to have a conversation with someone, but I don't want to have to talk" and so texting on a cell phone turned into the main use of a cell phone. Now, we have programs where you talk, into the phone, it types the text for you, then you tell it who to send to,and people have conversations this way.

I also don't get - why only a 142 characters or whatever? How'd Twitter come to that exact amount?

[Cuddlebunzzzz]

@DisturbedHavok they chose 140 characters because the minimum amount of characters any cell phone allows per message is 160. so there's 20 characters for a username and 140 for a message.

[djasonwright]

He can solve this with a simple tweet: "I am no longer affiliated with PhoneDog. If you're here for them, go to their twitter account here: link."

[Wordcrafter]

@djasonwright I am pretty sure his Followers know this, when it comes to people on Twitter they Twit about taking a shit, I am pretty sure this guy has already stated that he no longer works for Phone Dog, plus the name change. People stay for the guy, not for who he use to work for. Let's us say I had a Twitter account and had Cenk or Ana and in the end they stop doing TYT, [Ana perhaps, Cenk not so much] I would still be following them- because of who they are, not because they are TYT.

[INatalkaI]

And this is why I don't use twitter/facebook etc. Fuck them.

[Wordcrafter]

@INatalkaI But it has nothing to do with Twitter or Facebook, it is about a Coorp that got pissy about a person's account. Twitter and Facebook has nothing to do with a Coorp's outlandish behaviour over someone's account.

[psynema]

WTF is phone dog, never heard of it.

[Mika20]

....That's interesting...being a follower of a company - it owns you.....I see...

*deletes twitter account for good*

[melojordans23]

so now we are property to companies now, good to know I guess.

[vivelecorn]

Noah of Techno Buffalo?! Holy crap I'm not a huge fan of him as a YouTube personality but seriously why is he being sued for such stupidness? If that's the case then if he moves away from Techno Buffalo to another company taking subscribers, can Techno Buffalo sue him for that? Seriously, Internet is big business eh?!

[WIleyCubScout]

Hey Slavery, how's it going!

Thought we got rid of you...

[ViolentRiC]

@WIleyCubScout

You've just broken RiC's law.

Yeah, like Godwin's law but remove the nazis/holocaust and insert slavery.

Cease and desist.

[WIleyCubScout]

@ViolentRiC

Depends if you argue the twitter followers are clients or individuals.

Valid argument imo.

[MCAMVP]

Using transitivity, if corporations are people with rights and we're "legally" their property,

It's slavery.

[TruthAndMoreTruth]

Twitter followers are WORTHLESS!

I'd be happy to sell them as many followers as they're stupid enough to buy!

[muma0449]

porn>twitter

[TheHobgoblyn]

There is a well established precedent that anything an employee creates while they are in the company's employ and "on the clock" belongs to the company. The twitter account may very well be said to be a perfect example of such a thing.

But suing him doesn't seem like the correct path. The correct path may be to have the twitter account merely turned over to the company.

[filthyfun]

Corporations arn't people fuck any and all corporations unless you are a human being that has corporatized.

[VikTalks]

2:05 Ana troll face

[Keirnoth]

Face.

Palm.

[Jarethenator]

...I wonder if this corporation realizes that claiming to own people for whatever reason is slavery by definition...whoopsie :P

[fingrid]

@Jarethenator Yeah. I wonder why they bother suing if they are not going to get even 100k out of it -- the lawyers will eat that amount in days. I bet they cannot actually afford to bring it to court and they are just trying to milk that ex-employer out of all of his wealth.

Why 2.50 dollars? I'd love to hear the company accountant's estimates.

[TheHobgoblyn]

@Jarethenator It isn't people it is claiming to own, but the contact info to those people. Similar to if they had a mailing list, an employee couldn't run off with those email addresses or mail addresses even if it had been part of their job to send out the newsletters.

[Jarethenator]

...common sense would say that just because someone follows you doesn't mean you own them or are responsible for them...corporate sense would argue otherwise...

[TheDMD42396]

24,303 +1 followers now

[Kamicolod]

Pause at 2:02

[itamaru123]

I love how Cenk gets the big ass plug with borders while jay-ar, jesus, and dave get tiny ones lol

[bierat1610]

ATTENTION ALL AMERICANS THIS IS THE NEWS WE SHOULD BE WATCHING

/watch?v=KdxXhn3We7U

[hdzsound]

@bierat1610

nope, you should only see news about twitter and Iran.

[IdidnotFartedIswear]

WHO CARES!. Im going ton start sellin friends on facebook

[firefly361]

@IdidnotFartedIswear How much?

[395235]

This has to be the longest time any company has been huge and well known for a long time without bringing in significant income! Geeze! Come on twitter, monetize already!!!

[antitheist5567]

"hey its noah from phonedog.com" springs to mind

[mlbroadstreet]

Support Noah on FB - Social Media Followers are not property page.

[grimordwow]

"So y'all can come follow me on the tweeter" comes to mind...

[niggajuice781]

Did they indirectly call the followers slaves?

[ShogaNinja]

What's a twitter?

[alex30425]

Maybe all of his followers should unfollow him so then he doesn't have to pay a dime.

[Di0genesus]

The pro labor, pro market choice is in favor of Kravitz. A company doesn't own its consumers, and if the service said company provides is in what it's talent is doing, the talent is where the company lies. If the owners can't sell or perform their own service, then they shouldn't treat their talent as if they own them or said talent's clientele. If their turnover rate is high, they need to provide cover for themselves before, not after their talent leaves. 

[nickst0ne]

Problem is : a Twitter account cannot be split and this is a clear case of areas of responsibility. Did the guy tweet as part of his job or as a hobby? Do his messages belong to him or to the company ? etc.

Not enough info here to get the full picture.

[kandeesfan316]

That's complete bullshit.. If i was him i would close the stupid account just to piss them off, what a bunch of arrogant assholes.

[100alexdel]

think about it a if he cussed a follower out on twitter while he worked for phonedog

[CrudOMatic]

Now we get down to the skinny of it... Corporations think they fucking OWN us.

[theUSER101]

@CrudOMatic We do.

[Hobbitgoth]

@CrudOMatic I would say that they know it, not only that they think it.

[TheSchmuckLook]

@CrudOMatic What, you haven't been following Supreme Court decisions. Now that multi-national corporations can be considered as people for campaign contributions and since slavery is NOT outlawed everywhere it follows that corporations can own people. How's that for 21st Century logic?

[AntiHamster500]

@CrudOMatic Time to bite the hand that feeds us.

[BlueberryFusion]

What the fuck? Isn't Twitter a multimillion dollar company? They're going after something this small? Jesus, they're probably gonna lose more revenue from the outrage and the lawsuit fee than what's gained from this. But hey, what do I know?

[ByronC900]

@BlueberryFusion Watch the video dude. Twitter isn't suing anyone. "Phone Dog" is suing Noah Kravits, over his Twitter Followers. Understand?

[CainmosniMirrored]

Twitter is retarded.

[DreNewz]

@CainmosniMirrored Your Mother Is Retarded...

[CallMeMrNameless]

@CainmosniMirrored

I thought so too, until I read an essay about Twittter by Roger Ebert. Interesting stuff.

[k5lta]

@CainmosniMirrored AGREED!!!!

[kazekage321414]

The Key is whether the guy made any money off his tweets, if he didn't make any money, then suing is nonsense, I don't care about the legality of it, but I mean if he didn't make any money from the tweets that basically like he was doing free promotion of phonedog, you can't take like 80,000 from him for that.

[Suren0]

@Draxelzs

[PompousPreacher]

Why would you be talking about this when you could be talking about Saint Ron Paul! It's a conspiracy!!!!!

[C0ct0pusPrime]

i've got over 18k subs...at $2.50 a piece, that could get expensive.

good thing i don't use my employer's name in my handle like an idiot.

[jschultzVII]

@C0ct0pusPrime What's your twitter handle?

[zahnee12]

i feel like they didn't come to a decision and went a little around the issue. does anyone else feel the same?

[BrooklynJEW7]

Can i get money for my followers ?

[Draxelzs]

I would assume the followers are a property of Twitter, not PhoneDog.

They also gave him the right to continue using the Twitter account.

This better not hold in court, America.

[urkelette]

Read the paperwork you sign when you’re hired with a company. Theres some crazy crap in there sometimes. They want to claim ownership of anything you created on or off company time/resources, after you leave. They don’t want you to compete with them after termination, which basically means you can’t use your skills anymore. Crazy.

[Dahgrostabphri]

I'll sign up for 8,000,000 twitter accounts and have all of the follow Ana and the gang if Cenk will give me a percentage of the cut! We'll be rich!!!!!!!

[somaco7]

its intellectual property rights! you work for the company and anything u do while working for them is theirs!!! PERIOD $2.50 is fucking cheap

[ku42]

@somaco7 NO! $2.49 is cheap

[Draxelzs]

@somaco7

Remember, it's PER FOLLOWER.

So, 2.50 x 23 000 = $57 500

[Huskers1091]

I watch a lot of Noah and PhoneDogs videos. And I think PhoneDog will eventually drop their case.. For as much publicity this is getting.. Just imagine how much someone would owe Lady Gaga.. $2.50 x 17,000,000+ followers...

[JackEl3elm]

I have 90 followers now. Now I can buy a new phone with approximately $180.

[KwenHuda2010]

cute....I rarely check my twitter, but I'll follow you guys.

[emilyunderscoremarie]

My face when I found out Jayar's name was spelled Jayar and not J.R..... :OOOOOO

[codemonkeyslikeme]

FUCK PHONEDOG THEN

[vinmorin]

Is there something that companies do not own in this world?

[Snowman0147]

They gave him permission to use that name even though he left and it was his account. This is is stupid as fuck. The twitter owes that company nothing.

[METALMAN4Wii]

There subscribers it isn't like he was working for a video game company and stole his company's project and then sold it to one of there competitors. which has happen in the past believe it or not, what is this world coming too...?

[foamypezz]

You can reset your tweets and start from 0.