
Disney claims anyone using a Twitter hashtag is agreeing to their terms of use - slg
https://twitter.com/disneyplus/status/1254772307941191686
======
OrangeMango
At a rummage sale a few years ago, I bought a book published by Disney in the
1960s or 1970s which had instructions on how to make Mickey Mouse puppets. It
also said to "have fun" making them. Selling things for a profit is a lot of
fun.

As far as I'm concerned, I now have a perpetual, transferable license to make
and sell Mickey Mouse puppets. I even asked a lawyer.

~~~
amelius
This reminds me of a book called "numerical recipes in C", full of algorithms
that were very useful except you couldn't really use them because the authors
protected their use with a very restrictive license.

~~~
martincmartin
You could use the algorithms, just not their implementation of the algorithms.
If you rewrote it from scratch, following their text (not their source code),
you were fully allowed to use it.

~~~
hackinthebochs
I'm curious how this works in the case of reinvention. Some algorithms are so
simple that there is basically one canonical way of writing it. I'm assuming
copyright doesn't cover the independent implementation in such cases?

~~~
ww520
Reinvention is ok in term of copyright. Patent would prohibit it.

~~~
SteveNuts
What would happen if I patented "left pad" in a bunch of languages?

~~~
thayne
it would be an invalid patent (or at least should be), because 1\. There is
prior art 2\. it is obvious to a domain expert But given the US patent
office's track record, I wouldn't be too surprised if you were able to get a
patent. Just don't expect it to hold up in court.

~~~
philpem
But then, if you're patent trolling - does it even need to hold up in court?

IF cost_of_settlement < cost_of_court_action THEN pay_up(); /* ? */

~~~
thayne
Yep. Until you threaten someone willing to stand up to it, even if it is
expensive.

------
mholt
Update from Disney:

> The above legal language applies ONLY to replies to this tweet using
> #MayThe4th and mentioning @DisneyPlus . These replies may appear in
> something special on May the 4th!

[https://twitter.com/disneyplus/status/1254849654585323525](https://twitter.com/disneyplus/status/1254849654585323525)

... as if that's really any better.

~~~
ballenf
I love the precedent that Disney is setting here. Will be a little harder for
them to argue against my Tweet next month:

"Walt Disney World was awesome! Thanks to all the hard workers who made the
day special.

By replying to this Tweet, Disney Corp. hereby agrees to abide by the
copyright laws in place as of the release dates of its motion pictures,
instead of the longer dates obtained through perversion of the legal system by
Disney and its lobbyists."

In all seriousness, I'm sure Disney never thinks for a moment that the law
would ever be applied fairly to them or that this tweet could come back to
bite them.

~~~
coffeevradar
Copyright is fairly applied to Disney. There were many beneficiaries to its
extension, large and small. In any case, it is a matter of law, just like
earlier, shorter copyright protections were.

It's totally legitimate to favor shorter copyright, but essentially any
duration is an arbitrary one. It strikes me as odd that you would be
interested in applying the law fairly while also referring to the law as a
perversion.

~~~
matheusmoreira
> There were many beneficiaries to its extension, large and small.

The public did not benefit in any way from its extension. Quite the opposite:
every time the duration of copyright terms is extended, the public is robbed
of its rights so that corporations which have already made billions off of
their copyrighted works can make even more money. When was the last time some
copyrighted work entered the public domain? Probably the early 20th century.
When people think public domain, what comes to mind is renaissance art and
classical music. The truth is everything created in the 80s and before should
already be in the public domain and that's _very_ generous, more than enough
time for companies to get rich off of their creations.

The original social contract behind copyright was "we'll pretend your
intellectual work is scarce for some time so you can profit and then it will
enter the public domain". Works aren't entering the public domain because
every time Mickey Mouse is about to become public property Disney spends
millions lobbying the government in order to extend the copyright duration.
Copyright is effectively infinite despite what the law says. So why should the
public recognize copyright as legitimate to begin with?

~~~
blotter_paper
I'm not a fan of copyright law, so don't take this limited factual response as
an attempt at a general refutation of your points.

>When was the last time some copyrighted work entered the public domain?

January 1st, 2020:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_in_public_domain](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_in_public_domain)

~~~
RonanTheGrey
So, things made about 100 years ago are finally making it into the public
domain..

I don't know.. I mean yeah, but something strikes me as really wrong about
that.

------
mangoman
I think the value of hiring more experienced folks to run social media (i.e.
not an intern, someone with any amount of experience) is that they can
actually point out how ridiculous this will come off, and argue against this
type of tweet. It really doesn't take that much corporate self awareness to
see how bad it looks to try to force TOS on free speech on a public forum.

~~~
kayodelycaon
> It really doesn't take that much corporate self awareness

I think you underestimate how well anyone in management actually understands
this. One job had me constantly pushing back on three or more paragraphs of
legal text in the damndest of places. In one case, the legal text was larger
than the form itself to say "we need your email to contact you with changes
related to your account".

Every time I contacted our company lawyer directly for clarification, he was
always fine with the short summaries I wrote.

I was the only person in the entire process that stopped to ask if any of this
was really necessary. I guess that's why I was the developer handling all most
of our legal compliance. Everyone else either didn't care or had given up.

~~~
michaelhoffman
In many organizations, legal boilerplate has nothing to do with what's
reasonable in the law or even what a lawyer thinks is necessary.

~~~
Frost1x
Much text in business has become the ever growing wrapper for:

 _" As the writer, I get as much monetary value as I can or at least make you
believe as such and you give up as much monetary value as possible, or at
least as much as I can scare or deter you from seeking. I also have no
responsibilities and all rights, while you have all responsibilities and no
rights."_

It's simply expanded out a bit more and often gives explicit examples. It's
completely unmanageable for any common citizen to process and understand what
you almost have to agree to on daily basis to function in our ever more
privatized world.

The amount of garbage I see on a daily basis wrapped with passive aggressive
legal threats around every corner is mind numbing. I even still get emails
from people who add footers that they own the information and if you receive
it wrongfully, you're " _required_ " to delete it.

We essentially have a bunch of children running around running society through
businesses driven by greed who never fully socially developed into functioning
reasonable and responsible adults.

~~~
mschuster91
You are right, the amount of garbage legal stuff has expanded - but mostly as
a result of people doing shit they're not supposed to do. Let's take the email
footer... and an email directed to the wrong person: in ye olde times, the
recipient would go "not my crap, delete it" and that's it - but now, there is
a real risk the recipient uses the information and publishes it, leading to
monetary damage or penalties (e.g. if it was information that must not be
disclosed prior to a certain date).

The company can now sue the recipient or at least threaten him for disclosing
stuff. Yes: the error is on the _sender_ side, but in ye olde times the
unspoken agreement was that you'd delete mails not addressed to you. Times
have changed and so the legal boilerplate had to adapt.

A bit more common sense across the world, especially when it comes to the
trend of resolving conflicts via courts instead of talking to one another and
shaking hands, and there would be a lot less boilerplate and mind-bogglingly
_dumb_ disclaimers ("don't put any animals in microwaves") in this world.

~~~
Negitivefrags
Okay, but can anyone find a case where this went to court and a lawyer
successfully argued "Your honor, it's not our fault the info was leaked
because we put a disclaimer at the bottom of the email when we sent it to the
wrong person!"

I'm skeptical.

If the language doesn't actually prevent liability anyway, then get rid of it.

------
pridkett
This isn’t unique to Disney. Delta Airline has been pushing #SkyMilesLife and
other assorted hashtags for a while and they’ve had fine print that says they
get a license to use the content with those hashtags. It was even on the signs
hanging in the jet bridges back when people used to get on things called
airplanes and travel to far off lands.

Now it lives on through a website.

> By tagging photos using #SkyMilesLife and/or #DeltaMedallionLife, user
> grants Delta Air Lines (and those they authorize) a royalty-free, world-
> wide, perpetual, non-exclusive license to publicly display, distribute,
> reproduce and create derivative works of the submissions (“Submissions”), in
> whole or in part, in any media now existing or later developed, for any
> purpose, including, but not limited to, advertising and promotion on Delta
> websites, commercial products and any other Delta channels, including but
> not limited to #SkyMilesLife or #DeltaMedallionLife publications. Delta
> reserves the right to use or not use content tagged #Skymileslife and/or
> #DeltaMedallionLife and user will not be entitled to compensation if photo
> is used.

from: [https://skymileslife.delta.com/](https://skymileslife.delta.com/)

~~~
snowwrestler
Apple applied very similar terms to their "Shot on iPhone" campaign. The
public outcry was over paying the winners, but Apple's terms for the campaign
gave themselves a license to use any submission, which was defined as a public
post that used a certain hashtag and contained certain information.

The fact that no one seems to remember this about "Shot on iPhone" is a good
clue that few people actually care about this sort of thing.

Which makes sense because from a practical perspective--whether or not these
terms are actually enforceable--it's super easy to avoid them. Just don't use
that hashtag.

~~~
icebraining
As other have pointed out, one particularity of this hashtag is that it was
already heavily used:
[https://twitter.com/search?q=%23maythe4th%20until%3A2020-03-...](https://twitter.com/search?q=%23maythe4th%20until%3A2020-03-31&src=typed_query)

Obviously Disney won't use any tweet sent previous to yesterday, but any one
of those persons could have used the hashtag again today without having the
faintest clue of what Disney claimed.

------
hpoe
Anyone that responds to this thread legally agrees to surrender all
intellectual property posted or mentioned by them in any manner on the
internet messaging forum hackernews located at news dot ycombinator dot com,
hereunder referred to as the interweb place, will be the sole property of hpoe
and those he chooses to designate. These terms may not be modified, altered,
or amended except with written agreement of both parties, that is notarized
and approved by a Form 23-19B.

~~~
hprotagonist
_“But the plans were on display…”

“On display? I eventually had to go down to the cellar to find them.”

“That’s the display department.”

“With a flashlight.”

“Ah, well, the lights had probably gone.”

“So had the stairs.”

“But look, you found the notice, didn’t you?”

“Yes,” said Arthur, “yes I did. It was on display in the bottom of a locked
filing cabinet stuck in a disused lavatory with a sign on the door saying
‘Beware of the Leopard.” _

~~~
rswail
The man from Snowcrash quoting HHGTG about a Disney Star Wars promotion. We've
reached peak nerd.

------
lstamour
If I understand disneytermsofuse.com correctly and I am not a lawyer, they’re
claiming #MayThe4th is a Disney Product under the terms therein? Or that the
Twitter account is a Disney Product? Because the terms say:

> The Disney Products may ask for or allow you to communicate, submit, upload
> or otherwise make available text, chats, images, audio, video, contest
> entries or other content (“User Generated Content”), which may be accessible
> and viewable by the public. Access to these features may be subject to age
> restrictions. Whether a Disney Product made available by us or in connection
> with Disney Products appears on a Disney website, service and/or platform or
> is integrated with a third-party website, service, application, and/or
> platform, you may not submit or upload User Generated Content that is
> defamatory, harassing, threatening, bigoted, hateful, violent, vulgar,
> obscene, pornographic, or otherwise offensive or that harms or can
> reasonably be expected to harm any person or entity, whether or not such
> material is protected by law.

... and they continue like that for a few paragraphs. Doesn’t look like
they’ve updated the terms to account for this use.

Either way, reminds me of when sites tried to block “links” or require their
website terms to apply to simply linking to a site...

~~~
sys_64738
I doubt very much you can enforce a term that is a date in the year.

~~~
contravariant
It's also going to get awkward for the new Dutch branch of DisneyPlus where
the date clashes with the yearly WWII memorial.

------
dec0dedab0de
Meh, they just want to use people's tweets for a starwars thing. I think they
would already be allowed to per the twitter quoting rules (which I haven't
read in years). The problem is the way it's worded sounds like it's coming
from a legal/marketing/executive alien. Which I guess also ties into star
wars.

~~~
usace
I don't get the outrage, twitter is public and they want to use fan-created
public tweets for some marketing thing. Who cares?

~~~
dec0dedab0de
The outrage is that they said that by using a specific hashtag you are
agreeing to something. Which taken by itself is outrageous.

------
pnw_hazor
Disney should have licensed the rights they need directly from Twitter.

Twitter users already grant Twitter the same rights Disney was asking for.
Those rights include letting Twitter share, modify, or re-license the user
generated content with few limitations.

Here Disney is trying to clear the rights to include user generated or user
provided content in promotional material.

This is similar to how they get the rights to use other contest-like user
submissions submitted by email, official Disney forums, apps, or web forms.

However, here they completely misjudged how this looks on Twitter and how the
twitter laity would respond.

~~~
nulbyte
I don't think they even need to ask. The way I read the terms, they already
had it, so I think they are angling to put themselves in control unilaterally
and one-up Twitter. Disney's terms have prohibition on "offensive" content,
while Twitter's terms acknowledges you maybe exposed to offensive content.
Twitter says others may use the content on other media and services:

> This license authorizes us to make your Content available to the rest of the
> world and to let others do the same. You agree that this license includes
> the right for Twitter to provide, promote, and improve the Services and to
> make Content submitted to or through the Services available to other
> companies, organizations or individuals for the syndication, broadcast,
> distribution, Retweet, promotion or publication of such Content on other
> media and services, subject to our terms and conditions for such Content
> use.

~~~
pnw_hazor
Absent another side agreement, I don't think Disney has more or less rights to
content posted on Twitter by other users than any other user.

Thus, if they intend to launch a multi-million dollar commercial project using
content posted to Twitter, they need to do some work to clear the rights.

The Twitter TOS allows Twitter to do stuff with user posted content. It
doesn't allow Disney have unlimited rights to do stuff with content posted at
@DisneyPlus by other Twitter users.

Absent licensing the content directly from Twitter, they could have asked for
the rights for the few tweets they end up deciding to use. Thinking outloud --
I guess that wouldn't work if they wanted live stream tweets...

edit: fixed - somehow my third para said the opposite of what I meant

------
baxuz
Just read their TOS. Check this shit out:

"We do not claim ownership of your User Generated Content; however, you grant
us a non-exclusive, sublicensable, irrevocable and royalty-free worldwide
license under all copyrights, trademarks, patents, trade secrets, privacy and
publicity rights and other intellectual property rights for the full duration
of those rights to use, reproduce, transmit, print, publish, publicly display,
exhibit, distribute, redistribute, copy, index, comment on, modify, transform,
adapt, translate, create derivative works based upon, publicly perform,
publicly communicate, make available, and otherwise exploit such User
Generated Content, in whole or in part, in all media formats and channels now
known or hereafter devised (including in connection with the Disney Products
and on third-party websites, services, applications, and/or platforms), in any
number of copies and without limit as to time, manner and frequency of use,
without further notice to you, without attribution (to the extent this is not
contrary to mandatory provisions of applicable law), and without the
requirement of permission from or payment to you or any other person or
entity."

So, @disneyPlus is a platform for The Disney Products. So if someone tweets
some fanart with that handle, Disney is free to monetize on it?

~~~
Jon_Lowtek
That is what Disney hopes to achieve with this whole thing, yes.

------
ilamont
It just appended a reply to its own tweet that says:

"The above legal language applies ONLY to replies to this tweet using
#MayThe4th and mentioning @DisneyPlus . These replies may appear in something
special on May the 4th!"

[https://twitter.com/disneyplus/status/1254849654585323525](https://twitter.com/disneyplus/status/1254849654585323525)

~~~
shadowgovt
Good clarification, but it's still, I think, somewhat unclear whether there's
any kind of enforceable contract they could claim there. Here's what that
court conversation would likely look like in civil court:

Disney: "As per our first tweet, when the user replied to use with #MayThe4th,
they were giving consent to use their tweet in our ad campaign."

Judge: "Were you aware of the first tweet?"

Plaintiff: "No, your honor. I posted my tweet in reply to the Disney+ account
because I saw my friends doing it. The thread was ten thousand messages long;
I didn't read the whole thing."

Not exactly a slam-dunk case for the plaintiff here, but I'd have to see
precedent to show how a TOS that cannot practically be read is enforceable.

~~~
snowwrestler
Disney's tweets are better understood as a "heads up" to people, than creating
any sort of right that Disney will actually try to defend.

There is zero chance Disney will try to argue about this content. If someone
complains at all, Disney will just take their tweet down and replace it with
another one. There are plenty more fans out there who would be psyched to see
their tweet being promoted.

------
beached_whale
This is the twitter equivalent of the relative posting the not consenting to
Facebook's use of their postings.

------
ALittleLight
It actually doesn't seem so bad on looking at it. It seems like they just want
to use your tweet in some kind of collage or something and they were trying to
cover their bases by claiming the right to do so.

I think it would've been better to say "If you use this hashtag we may retweet
you or feature your comment in promotional material" rather than asserting
that you would agree to something by using a hashtag.

~~~
contravariant
Yeah, except that I don't think they are allowed to feature your comment in
promotional material without consent (tweets aren't public domain to the best
of my knowledge). Same way you can't just reuse a Star Wars trailer in your
own promotional material.

~~~
rovr138
[https://developer.twitter.com/en/developer-
terms/agreement-a...](https://developer.twitter.com/en/developer-
terms/agreement-and-policy)

> B. License from Twitter. Subject to the terms and conditions in this
> Agreement and the Developer Policy (as a condition to the grant below),
> Twitter hereby grants you and you accept a non-exclusive, royalty free, non-
> transferable, non-sublicensable, revocable license solely to:

> 1\. Use the Twitter API to integrate Twitter Content into your Services or
> conduct analysis of such Twitter Content;

> 2\. Copy a reasonable amount of and display the Twitter Content on and
> through your Services to End Users, as permitted by this Agreement;

Point 2, you licensed the content to twitter and they license it via the
developer portal.

------
wilde
I’m confused. Isn’t this already true without Disney having to antagonize
anyone? Similar to the Instagram/Mashable court case?

[https://www.theverge.com/2020/4/14/21221078/stephanie-
sincla...](https://www.theverge.com/2020/4/14/21221078/stephanie-sinclair-
mashable-instagram-embed-copyright-lawsuit-dismissed)

------
BitwiseFool
I don't see this holding up - especially because it's ripe for abuse. What's
to stop me from making a TOS for my own hashtag?

~~~
smnrchrds
For it not to be held up, someone has to take Disney to court and win. Good
luck with that. It's the whole _single-digit millionaires don 't have
effective access to legal system_, turned up to 11. I can only see a double-
digit billionaire having the resources to fight this to the end.

~~~
Consultant32452
I have an anecdote about this. I worked at Disney for some time and a coworker
was an avid 2nd amendment person. They left their firearm in their car as is
legal for any employer with a very short list of exceptions. I think munitions
development is one of the exceptions, and Disney qualifies because of their
massive fireworks shows. I'm very foggy on these details as it's been many
years since. Anyways, he was chatting it up with a security person and it came
out in convo that he had his firearm in his car. He was immediately fired and
removed from the property. He tried to fight it in court.

Now this individual was remarkably stupid just as a general person, regardless
of this event. I don't have any interest in debating the merits of what
happened to him one way or the other.

However, it was interesting that the Disney lawyer explicitly informed his
lawyer that their strategy would be to just bleed him dry into bankruptcy by
getting continuances and stuff forever into the future, which would force him
to keep paying his lawyer to show up and do stuff, but would never move the
case forward.

~~~
kevin_thibedeau
This is why you only live in states with single-party consent recording
privileges and document everything these sleezeballs say. Then hand it over to
the judge.

~~~
Consultant32452
That sounds nice in theory, but the second order effect of that kind of thing
happening a lot would be the megacorp lawyer doesn't warn you first. Then,
after you are bankrupt, you may or may not figure out what they did to you.
But you still lost and you're still bankrupt.

------
sovietmudkipz
If anyone could pay legal claim to a twitter hashtag, wouldn’t it be the first
person who used the twitter hashtag on twitter?

I would imagine it would go to that person through the default sort of
copyright of artistic work (the concept).

Maybe that’s technically forfeit by twitter’s usage terms of service (ToS)? If
so, does twitter’s usage ToS supplant Disney’s claim (generated from twitter
user @DisneyPlus)?

I wonder if Disney coordinated with the originator of the hashtag before
sending this tweet.

------
lmilcin
Most likely some very lost corporate drone soul.

This is not enforceable the same way they don't get rights to any text that
has "Mickey" in it. May the 4th is also World Naked Gardening Day since 2005,
6 years before Star Wars Day. There is a lot of potential for fun to be had...

------
ravenstine
Just for #MayThe4th? It would be a real stretch in the first place if they
made this statement about #MayThe4thBeWithYou, but just #MayThe4th???

~~~
na85
Makes me want to set up a twitter bot that tweets things that are purposely
against Disney's bullshit TOS and tags it with #MayThe4th.

~~~
berbec
#winniethepooh #taiwaneseindependence #MayThe4th

~~~
jrockway
I was going to give them that 09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0
key and see if it still upset them. Getting China involved does seem like a
good idea, though!

------
carlchenet
Community manager trying to create buzz imho

~~~
chance_state
ie. All press is good press?

Because I don't think this is coming across as good press on its own.

------
geoah
The tweet says “by sharing your message with us using #MayThe4th”. I wonder if
they expect both the hashtag AND a mention of @disneyplus. Still weird though.

~~~
itronitron
Any public tweet is shared.

------
blotter_paper
In this equally public and legally enforceable format I would like to announce
that if The Walt Disney Company ever again tweets an octothorpe followed by
any other character(s) they hereby agree to immediately release all of their
intellectual property into the public domain, with no further action on their
part necessary.

------
shawnps
This is not what many people here seem to think it is. A real lawyer's take:
[https://twitter.com/openargs/status/1254873718855208960](https://twitter.com/openargs/status/1254873718855208960)

------
canadianwriter
Is it possible this is just boilerplate legal stuff that was whipped up for a
campaign and the social media person just copied and pasted it with a minor
tweak so it makes sense for Twitter?

The language reminds me of standard contest language I've read many times
before...

~~~
viklove
It's not only possible, but highly likely. Still doesn't make it OK or not
worthy of ridicule though. Internal company processes have no impact on how
the public (and judicial system) will react to them.

------
perch56
This reminded me of “The Office” episode when Michael screams “I declare
bankruptcy”. This is not how this works, Disney...

[https://youtu.be/C-m3RtoguAQ](https://youtu.be/C-m3RtoguAQ)

------
tomcooks
How do you fuck up so bad marketing to one of the biggest fanbases in the
universe?

~~~
jedberg
You start by making a trilogy with no coherent story across the three movies
that ends by basically undoing the first two trilogies and go from there.

(For the record I enjoyed the last three movies as general fantasy movies,
they just didn't fit all that well into the mythology).

~~~
komali2
The "cool" parts were cool. The fights were _way_ better than the clone wars
trilogy. The return to using puppets and other physical props was great.
Trying for a strong woman lead - excellent.

The characters - garbage.

The story - trash.

Spiking a star destroyer with a FTL ship - universe-ruining, but it certainly
sounded dope.

It didn't "ruin" star wars though. Nothing can ever change how great the first
(first-made) three movies were. Well, nothing other than destroying all
original copies and only making available ones with bad Xbox-graphics 3d model
aliens walking around directly in front of all the best shots. Oh wait...

~~~
jedberg
> Spiking a star destroyer with a FTL ship - universe-ruining, but it
> certainly sounded dope.

They addressed that in Episode 9, with the throwaway line: "You can't do a
Holdo again, that's a 1 in a million chance!"

> Well, nothing other than destroying all original copies

They'll have to pry my OT Laserdisks out of my cold dead hands.

~~~
komali2
Do you seriously have the OG Laserdisks? Those are crazy rare - for the good
of the people you should make their digital content uhhhhhhhhh "available" as
it were ;)

If a Holdo is a 1 in a million chance, it's weird that it worked again in the
orbit of Endor, as we see at the end of the final movie...

------
shadowgovt
I've seen maker-spaces where a billboard was set up that automatically
displayed a rolling marquee of tweets that had been sent with
#TheMakerSpacesHashtag in the shop.

... can't help but wonder if the space put themselves at risk for being sued
over a copyright violation if someone didn't like their tweet on that
billboard.

~~~
saagarjha
How is that a copyright violation, though? The tweets are publicly available
on the internet, and presumably the maker space is just showing the Twitter
website like anyone could themselves…

~~~
greenshackle2
Lots of songs are available on public radio broadcasts, that doesn't mean I
have the right to remix them and play them in my concert hall.

~~~
saagarjha
But surely other people can listen in when you play the radio?

~~~
greenshackle2
If it's a business in the US, it depends how many speakers you have. More than
6 (but no more than 4 in the same room), you're supposed to pay licensing
fees. [1]

If it's a non-commercial space, I don't know, I'm sure there's some
complicated piece of regulation you have to look at to figure it out.

[1][https://www.broadcastlawblog.com/2015/07/articles/does-a-
loc...](https://www.broadcastlawblog.com/2015/07/articles/does-a-local-
business-need-licenses-from-ascap-bmi-and-sesac-to-play-my-radio-or-tv-
station-on-their-premises/)

------
unethical_ban
>Disney claims anyone using a Twitter hashtag is agreeing to their terms of
use

No, they are not. They are claiming that anyone who replies to that specific
tweet _and_ uses that hashtag agrees to certain terms.

I think there is a difference - there is a level of intent associated with
direct replies to a tweet vs. simply using the hashtag.

------
retpirato
You realize the tweet right below that one clearly states that it only applies
to tweets containing a specific hashtag, right?

"The above legal language applies ONLY to replies to this tweet using
#MayThe4th and mentioning @DisneyPlus. These replies may appear in something
special on May the 4th!"

~~~
retpirato
What it's saying is that replies you post using that hashtag may appear
elsewhere. For example they could use them in promotional materials. If you
use that hashtag you're acknowledging that. They aren't the first to do that.
I don't see the issue.

------
criteriasuppl
I wonder if this might set a new precedent, what if you don't even need to
really post anything to automatically be subscribed to some arbitrary TOS. ie
I'm thinking of someone visiting a website and scrolling, and now all of a
sudden all their public content on the web is no longer theirs!

------
nirajd
Just poor communication, they're actually saying anyone who responds to their
tweet with the hashtag may be featured in some May 4th Disney Special, and the
ToS are implicit.

Isn't this technically not necessary as tweets are public domain?

------
doubleocherry
[https://starwarsintrocreator.kassellabs.io/#!/BM5xOee9Okv0Tv...](https://starwarsintrocreator.kassellabs.io/#!/BM5xOee9Okv0Tv0i2Iaz)

------
AlstZam
Fun fact : Zscaler which is my company's proxy, has flagged this page for
"malicious content". This is the first time a HN page is blocked by it. And
currently the only one.

------
fortran77
Misleading title. Disney also claims you have to @ the account associated with
the promotion. It's still odd, but not quite the same as claiming all use of
the hashtag.

~~~
hombre_fatal
Yeah, some comments are clearly responding to the "wait, a company can own a
hash tag?" clickbait of the title.

------
Dowwie
This is considered unconscionable according to contract law as it is
overwhelmingly one-sided in favor of the party

------
Havoc
My terms are that anyone replying to me owes me a thousand pounds. Because
that’s totally how this works...

------
itronitron
Are there similar terms of use for any written communication that includes the
names Disney or Mickey Mouse?

~~~
avian
Yes, they are called the trademark law.

------
pfdietz
It's kind of Disney to tell me about another twitter account I should block.

------
ScoutOrgo
What happens if someone replies with IP not owned by Disney and they use it?

~~~
pbhjpbhj
In general, is a tweet long enough to be a work for copyright purposes? Anyone
know of any copyright caselaw around tweets?

I can imagine some poems being complete works and fitting in the character
limit, perhaps.

~~~
colejohnson66
Stanford has a good webpage about short works and copyrights[0]. I’m sure 512
byte demo scene programs are copyrighted, and with Twitter raising the
character limit, I’m sure some could be copyrighted.

[0]:
[https://fairuse.stanford.edu/2003/09/09/copyright_protection...](https://fairuse.stanford.edu/2003/09/09/copyright_protection_for_short/)

~~~
pbhjpbhj
Thanks, a useful review of US copyright here.

>A similar style of nonsense “code words” prompted Judge Learned Hand to
write, “Conceivably there may arise a poet [...] //

A US judge really is called "Billings Learned Hand", surely a case of
nominative determinism.

------
rkuska
The title reads like r/Showerthoughts/ but for layers.

------
_kst_
My reply:

#MayThe4th @DisneyPlus

Permission denied, Mickey.

------
bronson
If I delete the tweet, that revokes permission. Right Disney?

~~~
rovr138
You can't legally store the tweets per twitter's tos. You can store the
tweet's id

 _Supposed to_ at least

 _Edit,_

I was mistaken. Looks like it's only if you redistribute to third parties,

> The best place to get Twitter Content is directly from Twitter.
> Consequently, we restrict the redistribution of Twitter Content to third
> parties. If you provide Twitter Content to third parties, including
> downloadable datasets or via an API, you may only distribute Tweet IDs,
> Direct Message IDs, and/or User IDs (except as described below). We also
> grant special permissions to academic researchers sharing Tweet IDs and User
> IDs for non-commercial research purposes.

------
softwarejosh
thats literally fair use, unless they are indicating they are to ignore
takedown requests, which no they wont, especially after they deleted this
tweet lol

------
neycoda
Disney's response to the backlash was:

Yah, but WE'RE DISNEY

------
neilwilson
As we all know, copyright is a Mickey Mouse law...

------
PunksATawnyFill
Anyone using douchetags is a tool anyway.

Talk about regressive.

------
nr152522
Is this tweet some kind of Jedi mind trick?

~~~
jnellis
1\. Sith Corp put out draconian statement.

2\. Clone army of internet nerds raises awareness.

3\. May the Force, is a marketing success.

------
MrOxiMoron
can they prove I saw that tweet when I use that hashtag? Don't think so.

------
chris_wot
That’s not how it works.

------
the_arun
Just a viral gimmick!

------
rory_h_r
Everyone is dunking on Disney but Twitter actually owns all your Content.

~~~
exolymph
No it doesn't, it just has a very broad and permissive license, because how
the fuck else could the website function.

Do you mean "own" metaphorically?

~~~
colejohnson66
Don’t be snarky.

Anyways, this is from Twitters TOS[0 §5]:

> 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, non­exclusive, royalty­free
> 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).

Basically, they don’t take copyright of what you post (in contrast to what OP
said), but it doesn’t matter because they can do what they want with it.

[0]: [https://cdn.cms-twdigitalassets.com/content/dam/legal-
twitte...](https://cdn.cms-twdigitalassets.com/content/dam/legal-
twitter/asset-download-files/TheTwitterUserAgreement_1.pdf)

~~~
benibela
What happens if you post a photo of GPLed code on it?

~~~
exolymph
Perhaps fair use exemption?

~~~
benibela
I live in Germany

Afaik there is no fair use or DMCA here

------
ipsum2
.

~~~
shadowgovt
They're trying to CYA for future ad campaigns, but they can't actually CTA
their way.

No dice, Disney. The way this works is if you want to use the tweets shouted
into the ether, you can, and if someone doesn't like it, they can sue you, and
then the US (and probably international) law gets to figure out _on your dime_
via the lawyers you will pay whether you misused the tweets.

... or, Disney does the not-lazy thing, gathers up the tweets, issues
individual requests to use to every user who tweets into the hashtag, and only
moves forward with the ones they get consent for.

... or, third option, Disney puts up their own website where users can submit
tweets by URL, and submitting a tweet to that website (signed off by a user's
Disney account) confirms the user is claiming they own copyright of the tweet
and is authorizing Disney to use it.

But yeah, more than zero effort on Disney's part required.

~~~
Izkata
They added a clarification tweet that it does indeed only apply to the replies
to the original tweet.

~~~
shadowgovt
It's a good clarification of their intent, but I don't think it puts them on
legal ground that's any less shaky. They'd still have to prove users had any
intent at all of complying with their TOS in undertaking a public action that
is only tangentially related to Disney's little slice of Twitter (hell, they'd
have to prove users were _aware_ of the TOS to even be compliant or not), and
good luck with that if it ever came to court.

------
zucker42
If I use the hashtag in a way Disney doesn't like, can I be prosecuted under
the CFAA?

------
samdunham
Everything everyone posts on Twitter can be used by anyone for any reason.
It's in the Twitter TOS. Disney didn't even need to post anything, they could
have just used your tweets for whatever they wanted to use them for.

~~~
robin_reala
[https://twitter.com/en/tos#intlTerms](https://twitter.com/en/tos#intlTerms)

“You retain your rights to any Content you submit, post or display on or
through the Services. What’s yours is yours — you own your Content (and your
incorporated audio, photos and videos are considered part of the Content).”

