
Twitter Thread Compiler Apps and Copyright Ethics - DoreenMichele
http://www.erynnbrook.com/when-twitter-threads-fly-away/
======
peterkelly
> _But I can’t support any product that aggregates content for profit and
> isn’t built from the principle of compensating and protecting content
> creators from the get-go_

This is literally what twitter is.

> _No, I don’t like screenshots of my threads being reposted on Facebook or
> Tumblr. I don’t like my tweets appearing in ad-filled listicles that someone
> got paid to write._

If you're going to speak publicly, and say something that attracts interest,
this is inevitable. As shitty as "twitter journalism" is, at least they're
providing correct attribution to the original author. This is how online
discussions work, and I think that a rule that says you're not allowed to
quote other people would be harmful to society.

~~~
icebraining
> This is literally what twitter is.

Perhaps technically, but I think by "aggregate" she means by crawling, rather
than places where people post themselves.

> I think that a rule that says you're not allowed to quote other people would
> be harmful to society.

Actual journalism, which just quotes parts or mentions the content in order to
comment upon it (like you did), is very different from what she's criticizing,
which is wholesale copying without any further purpose.

~~~
0xADEADBEE
I'm not sure it's fair to say 'without any further purpose'. People aren't
leveraging the functionality of a third party to show a thread of tweets for
fun; they're doing this because the experience of reading a thread on Twitter
isn't as good as it could be, and the (what feels like a) sudden proliferation
of thread compilers is a testament to that. There's a definite value add I
think, and while she may not like it, I don't see that going away anytime
soon.

------
zerocrates
> But imagine what she’d have if her name was attached to every instance of
> the image, doctored or not?

Of course that's one of the first edits that will be made: removing the
credits. Especially when they're placed unobtrusively like in the example.

I do want to note something, though: the author uses some loose wording when
mentioning the change to "copyright" the example image, but that's a little
misleading: it was copyrighted the moment it was made, even without having the
notice. A notice can still be a good idea for various reasons but I wouldn't
be _too_ worried about it, honestly.

Actually exercising your rights could be a fraught process for all sorts of
reasons but you do have the option.

------
techsupporter
I understand where the author is coming from; people absolutely should be paid
for their labors and if other people are making money off of that, the first
person should share in that. Plus, there's definitely a desire for a creator--
of any stripe--to want to have their creation viewed in the way that they
originally created it.

On the other hand, and maybe this misses the point entirely, I absolutely
loathe Twitter threads. I wish every time someone felt compelled to write
"Here's a deep and insightful look at that thing you read me to find out
about. /thread," the word "thread" would be replaced with a link to a long
form post even if it had the same words. Part of it is Twitter's UI ("oops,
page reloaded, back to the top you go") and part is

that it is

a little maddening to

read thoughts br

oken up into smaller

chunks and not

paragraphs.

That said, I agree more with my first paragraph than my second so I get it,
and perhaps if I can't follow or respect the creator's wishes in how to
consume the content that he or she created in the manner it was created, maybe
I shouldn't consume it at all?

~~~
deogeo
> perhaps if I can't follow or respect the creator's wishes in how to consume
> the content that he or she created in the manner it was created, maybe I
> shouldn't consume it at all?

I _strongly_ disagree. While I also think that creators should be compensated
for their works (for a limited time), after they get said compensation, they
should get _no_ say in how you consume the content, or what you do with it
(with the obvious exception of making it available to others).

~~~
rexpop
> after they get said compensation, they should get no say in how you consume
> the content

We need universal basic income alongside the abolition of intellectual
property law.

~~~
rocqua
One part of IP law that needs to remain is attribution. We don't want people
copying others work and claiming they made it.

Another part is trademark law. It should not be possible for e.g. coca cola to
make Pepsi cans with horrible tasting drinks inside.

However, most of Patent law, and a lot of Copyright law should be scrapped.

~~~
klez
> Another part is trademark law. It should not be possible for e.g. coca cola
> to make Pepsi cans with horrible tasting drinks inside.

I'm pretty sure that falls more under fraud than it falls under trademark
violation.

~~~
uiri
Trademark law functions as an extension of laws against fraud. It really
doesn't have much to do with copyrights nor patents.

------
CM30
The sites making articles from these threads is definitely an issue, though my
experience is they don't exactly need these bots to do so. A disturbingly high
percentage of articles on sites like BuzzFeed and Dorkly are basically just
'here are ten screenshots of Reddit posts about X', and those likely weren't
done with bots. Lazy media sites reposting social media posts is its own
issue.

Thread compiler apps and sites on the other hand... well I'm a bit more torn
there. On the one hand, yeah, I guess it's not right if you're just reprinting
others' work without their permission. But at the same time, most of these
services do let you embed content, and do have an API. Isn't that basically
what they exist for?

And aren't you already not getting paid for your work by using these services?
You're not getting paid for posting on Twitter.

~~~
DoreenMichele
_You 're not getting paid for posting on Twitter._

Some writers are monetizing their Twitter threads. For example:

[https://www.patreon.com/user?u=4846197](https://www.patreon.com/user?u=4846197)

~~~
viiralvx
This is an interesting angle! If these Twitter users could login to these
thread reading apps and maybe attach a Patreon link to their accounts, is that
a happy middle ground? Also, what if they link to their Patreon/Square
Cash/PayPal/Venmo at the end of every thread? That will also get posted to
these thread unrolling sites.

~~~
cpeterso
Twitter could help users monetize by adding a Flattr-like micropayment system
where you could "tip" a tweet instead of just liking it. Likes could be more
than just social currency. Twitter could make money off the float of money in
tippers' and tippees' accounts. This might lead to more meme content theft
because people would want to get tipped for other people's popular content.

Or Twitter could allow content creators could charge a subscription fee to be
followed. Creators could allow their tweets to become public after a
configurable number of hours so non-subcribers could see what they're missing.

------
nyxxie
I don't see a problem with people who aggregate content for money. They're
providing a valuable service sifting through the vast sea of potentially
interesting content and presenting it in a manner that is efficient and
entertaining to consume. The information itself is not valuable, _being shown
that information in an efficient and timely manner_ is valuable. If you've
posted your ideas or works freely on a platform that does not restrict access
to it (Twitter, Reddit, HN, etc), then it is not a scarce resource and simply
does not have value that can be stolen from you. Aggregators are giving it
value by making it visible to their audience.

This all feels analogous to someone telling a joke to their friends. One of
the friends taking the joke and claiming it as their own is a dick move, but
we all accept that the joke was freely given away and that the other friends
aught to be able to retell it without being forced to credit the original
author every time they retell it (or pay them if they make money telling it at
some point). It's an idea; once you freely enter it into the public sphere you
don't and shouldn't have control or ownership anymore; it belongs to society.

------
pxtail
Do you know why "thread compiler apps" exist and have userbase? Because your
50-part "story/article" on twitter is unreadable waste of time for some people
and they invented solution for this problem.

~~~
ariabuckles
She addresses that in the original thread — her twitter threads are
specifically for her followers; they're not blog posts.

~~~
seniorsassycat
Do her followers have to use first party twitter clients? Are these thread
compilers different than third party clients?

~~~
ariabuckles
1) I don't think so.

2) They're different because they usually store and distribute her data
somewhere other than twitter. If she deletes a thread, that copy persists. If
people interact with that copy, she doesn't get to see or manage that. If it's
through twitter's API, she can see interaction with her content and block
people if they interact abusively. And third party clients generally don't
profit off of individual threads.

[https://bobbin.herokuapp.com/](https://bobbin.herokuapp.com/) is a compiler
that is much more like a third party client; it all goes through twitter's
API, and in follow ups she said it sounds fine.

------
kyle-rb
I agree with the author completely in regard to the low-effort articles simply
rehashing Twitter threads. I'm not sure if fair use would even be taken into
account in this case, but I feel like this isn't transformative, and it's
aiming to provide a replacement product.

However, I disagree on thread readers. They provide attribution to the author,
so a reader has just as much opportunity to click through to the author's page
as they would within the default Twitter client.

Yes the thread reader is getting ad revenue from displaying the content, but
this isn't really money that the author would have seen anyway. If anything,
Twitter is the one getting ripped off, so it's in their interest to improve
the native thread reading experience, to capture back that lost revenue. The
author says that they're not providing any added value, but I think their
value is the improved readability of the thread.

Overall I think she's discounting the improved readability that these sites
provide. She mostly just mentions that they improve shareability, which for me
is a secondary benefit at best.

------
ricardobeat
One would think that after nearly three decades of internet we’d all have
agreed on this. It’s not ‘your’ feed, it is content you posted on a public
forum. If you want to monetize it, find an audience and sell them your content
in private, or generate revenue from the exposure.

~~~
firasd
I think normal copyright laws would apply, beyond small passages being quoted
(except for maybe that Twitter's terms allow embedding tweets, thus creating a
workaround). I can't just legally put together a PDF of all your HN comments
called "ricardobeat's thoughts" and sell it at $40 a pop.

~~~
kgwgk
But you could do so with YCombinator’s permission.

------
rgoulter
I feel that blogposts or videos which are basically rehashes of viral Twitter
threads or Reddit posts are quite sleazy.

My intuition is "repackaging, redistributing, or transforming freely available
things" isn't a problem. But trying to make money from it is.

I can understand it's a pain if you're producing content regularly which is
well received, but you're not paid for it.

I think that parallels the open-software stuff at the moment. (Licenses and
creative-commons seem analogous in this case).

I think that "Donate to my Patreon to support my content creation" has worked
out okay, though. It seems to have given more people more money than they'd
otherwise get from a "only consume if you've paid" model. (Although 'Patreon
supported' doesn't solve the sleazy redistribute-with-ads).

------
mirimir
I get her point. But I have zero patience for Twitter. I've tried it. And it's
just too fragmented for me to bother with.

The only way I could vaguely make sense of it is through thread-compiling
clients. But I never found a good one for Linux. Is there one?

But websites that compile Twitter threads, and then serve them via apps, with
ads? That's just fucking insane. I mean, just put the bloody thread compiler
on Github ;)

------
woodman
ctrl+f 'transformative'... No matches.

I'm surprised by the sympathy I'm seeing for this position. You people know
that she is effectively complaining about fair use, right? This is not
something that can be budged on, even in deference to the feelings of a
"writer/feminist/educator". Fair use is the only thing that stands between us
and massive intellectual property cartels guiding the public consciousness
through selective enforcement. Wanna go back to network television? Because
this is how you do it.

~~~
speedplane
Fair use isn't a blanket excuse to do whatever you want. The key component is
whether your use is transformative. If you copy something to criticize it, or
make something that doesn't compete with the original, it's likely fair use.
If you copy something just to have it, or build upon it, it's not. This is a
new issue, but copying someone's tweets, just to create your own library of
tweets is not really transforming anything, I don't see how this is fair use.

~~~
woodman
Google "Richard Prince copyright". This is not a new issue, not even close.

BTW... She is using a still[0] from a video that CNN owns the copyright to,
and section 3 of their tos[1] explicitly forbids doing what she is doing -
with the unnecessarily stated exception "as otherwise expressly permitted
under copyright law". You really want to take that exception away from her? I
can pretty easily argue that her use is transformative, can you? How does this
differ from what she is complaining about?

[0] [http://www.erynnbrook.com/white-feelings-for-
charlottesville...](http://www.erynnbrook.com/white-feelings-for-
charlottesville/) [1] [https://www.cnn.com/terms](https://www.cnn.com/terms)

~~~
speedplane
How is the use of that photo transformative in anyway? Did she add to it? Is
the piece about criticizing the photo (which would be transformative) or is
she using it as part of an opinion news piece (which isn't)?

And btw, the Prince case is illustrative because the judge ruled that some of
his pieces were transformative, but others were not, walking that gray line.

------
UncleEntity
> She didn’t know until after it had flown away that she should copyright it.

The default is for works to have an automagic copyright so you have to give it
away (though a permissive license or public domain if your country supports
that concept) else nobody can legally share it.

Think what she meant to say is she should have put her name on it so she got
some interweb points.

------
cpeterso
That these third-party Twitter thread compilers exist means that Twitter needs
to fix their threading UI.

------
viiralvx
Coming back to this though...I'm kind of interested in other things that makes
content easier to consume. Instapaper, Pocket, other RSS apps, etc...yes, you
have the original source and all that, but isn't it taking it away from the
original medium in a way? Not sure if this is an apples to oranges comparison.

~~~
zokier
Well, if you start going on that path you'll also reach the complicated topic
of ad-blocking. It's all about dividing control how content can or should be
consumed, and how should various parties involved be compensated.

------
alshtico
The DCMA provides exceptions for caching. But in order to be a cache you need
to eventually and automatically reflect the wishes of the source. So, if the
original content disappears it has to disappear from the cache too. Or, if the
original content changes it has to be reflected in the cache too.

In the case of twitter, there is no equivalent for a per-account "robots.txt"
and issues like this arise where you can't take your content back once it's
copied. Twitter thread compilers should regularly check whether a tweet has
been removed etc to turn into a cache and avoid these situations.

~~~
icebraining
The DMCA (and copyright in general) is probably not relevant, because every
Twitter user grants them essentially a license to do anything with their
tweets, including sublicense them and such, so it's probably up to Twitter to
revoke that permission if they wish.

------
amelius
> But imagine what she’d have if her name was attached to every instance of
> the image, doctored or not?

Then her name would be connected to a silly joke forever.

------
yantrams
I believe the legendary Project Xanadu has an interesting approach, possibly
restrictive, for dealing with this issue.

[http://xanadu.com/xuTheModel/](http://xanadu.com/xuTheModel/)

------
zanezone
Try [http://tippin.me/](http://tippin.me/) \- we can only overcome the
predatory economics of these platforms by experimenting

------
TeMPOraL
So how about Twitter thread compiler that's just a bunch of static JS on a
CDN, that takes all its data from the URL and compiles threads client-side?

That ought to be fair under copyright law.

------
nvr219
Whenever I see a twitter thread I immediately do not read it.

