Legal Geek No. 119: Freedom of Tweets

Welcome back to Legal Geek. This week, we discuss this week's news regarding Twitter pulling verified badges from some users and re-evaluating how those badges are granted to users of this social network.

https://archive.org/details/LegalGeekEp119

Twitter has continued to evolve with recent changes, including the notable shift to allow 280 character tweets for all users instead of the long standing 140.  This week, the changes continued as Twitter shut down submissions for verification, which is the open process to request that your account get a verified badge indicating you are the true source material.  In other words, the fake Donald Trump and Miley Cyrus accounts don't get the verified check, but those run by the actual celebrities or their PR agents do.

The reasons for this shut down were explained as follows.  Twitter wants to introduce and apply new guidelines for verification, and also clear the decks of verified accounts that do not follow Twitter's rules and Terms of Service.  For example, Twitter has begun removing the badge from users for allegedly promoting hate or violence, and for engaging in or inciting harassment.  Twitter has claimed that the badge was being interpreted by some users as an endorsement or indicator of importance, but that was never the intent of the badge.

What made this story hit the news waves was the types of users who were in the first group to lose the verification badge.  Many of these users were far right commentators or public figures such as Jason Kessler, who organized a Charlottesville march, and Richard Spencer, a white supremacist.  Essentially, Twitter is deeming some radicals to be promoting hate, while other radicals have not faced the same type of repercussion.

So legally, is there any challenge that can be made by these users who have a status taken away?  The short answer is, probably not.  As a preliminary matter, tweets are not inherently protected free speech under the First Amendment.  If this removal of a status badge is seen as a censorship of the speech, it is not done by a government or a company acting on behalf of a government.  Yes, even though the President tweets all the darn time, this platform is not a government agency.  There's no Freedom of Tweets in the Constitution, last I checked.

Twitter and other private social networks have the right to regulate their channels as they wish, as generally set forth in the Terms of Service for these programs.  In the case of Twitter, the rules applied explicitly prohibit sharing a large number of things like misuse of other's intellectual property, excessive graphic violence, threats, hate or harassment materials, and private information.  Twitter has full latitude to suspend or terminate accounts that do not follow these rules, above and beyond the removal of a verification badge.

If you use Twitter, you agree to abide by those rules, and for these users, that has allegedly not been happening.  As such, the users likely have no reasonable recourse to overcome content control applied in this way by Twitter, and it would be similar with all the major social networks.

The Bottom Line is, as much as social networks like Twitter feel like the public open forum, they are still privately-owned channels of communication with rules and Terms of Service that provide wide latitude for controlling content and actions of users.  The world is likely a better place without fringe or radial dialogue, but one hopes that Twitter's new rules and the application of the verification system can treat all sides fairly in this process.

Finally, if you want to find a further discussion of this story, and lots of other fun geek topics, please check out my appearance on the Ritual Misery podcast from this week.

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Thanks for reading. Please provide feedback and legal-themed questions as segment suggestions to me on Twitter @BuckeyeFitzy

Legal Geek No. 118: Dominion and Call of Duty in the Legal Crosshairs

Welcome back to Legal Geek. This week, we update you on a couple of interesting legal cases dealing with popular games, the Dominion tabletop game and the Call of Duty series of video games.

https://archive.org/details/LegalGeekEp118

We start with Rio Grande Games, makers of Dominion, which all but created the deck building genre so popular in tabletop games the past 10 years.  Rio Grande has recently sued a handful of Amazon sellers for allegedly selling counterfeit copies of this game Dominion.

Rio Grande did a bit of their own discovery work, anonymously ordering Dominion from these sources and then investigating whether the copies of the game received were genuine.  They were not.  For example, the knockoffs use significantly lower quality card stock, and a plastic insert much flimsier than the one included with original boxes of Dominion.

With all of the artwork and game name and logos copied, this lawsuit has plenty of claims including trade dress infringement and copyright infringement.  An injunction seems likely in this circumstance, but it raises the question of will other fraudulent Amazon sellers pop up then, to take their place.  It's a constant struggle for some manufacturers and fields, but perhaps not as prevalent in the board game industry.  Thus, Rio Grande may be developing the cutting edge of what to do in these types of knockoff situations.

Unlike Rio Grande, who is suing others to protect their marketplace, Activision Blizzard, the makers of Call of Duty, is the target of a lawsuit filed this week for what they allegedly do with this series of games.  AM General, the makers of military Humvee vehicles, is suing Activision for improper use of trademarks associated with this vehicles.  AM General argues that humvees being prominently displayed in the video games and ancillary products like toys is Activision taking advantage of someone else's intellectual property.

This appears to be a bit of a cash grab by AM General, as the demands here are more for damages than for an injunction.  The legal theory here for significant damages relies on a claim that the wild popularity and sales success of Call of Duty comes only at the expense of AM General and the consumers who are duped into believing these companies are aligned or licensing the trademarks to one another.  That seems like it will be very difficult to prove, but perhaps a small amount of damages is warranted for unlicensed use of vehicle designs in these games.

The Bottom Line is, when gaming companies are successful and lead their marketplaces by making lots of sales and money, knockoffs or those with potential legal claims will always come out of the woodwork to try and claim a piece of the pie.  In those circumstances, courts serve an important purpose in making sure everyone plays fair in the free market.  It will be interesting to see what other game companies get entrenched in conflicts in the coming months, and if they are similar to these two.

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Do you have a question? Send it in!

Thanks for reading. Please provide feedback and legal-themed questions as segment suggestions to me on Twitter @BuckeyeFitzy