But can you even copyright a tweet? I did some research and was unable to come up with a clear answer. There was some academic discussion of the issue, and occasional instances in which Twitter users claimed others were infringing their tweets, but I could not find a clear instance in which someone had actually registered a copyright in a tweet.
So, 7 months and $35 later, I have my answer: no, you cannot copyright a tweet.
That, at least, is what the registration specialist at the Copyright Office decided to send me in response to my attempt to register this tweet as a literary work entitled “Tweet #452″:
Monkey bar fallacy: a bad person using something makes it bad. E.g., users of monkey bars include: children, TERRORISTS #tor
Of course, the rejection of this particular tweet does not imply that no tweet can be copyrighted. Perhaps the registration specialist did not feel my tweet was valuable or creative enough, and thus did not pass the (very low) threshold of originality.
Michael Sauers is currently the Director of Technology for Do Space in Omaha, NE. Michael has been training librarians in technology for the past twenty years and has also been a public library trustee, a bookstore manager for a library friends group, a reference librarian, serials cataloger, technology consultant, and bookseller since earning his MLS in 1995 from the University at Albany’s School of Information Science and Policy. Michael has also written dozens of articles for various journals and magazines and his fourteenth book, Emerging Technologies: A Primer for Librarians (w/ Jennifer Koerber) was published in May 2015 and more books are on the way. In his spare time he blogs at travelinlibrarian.info, runs The Collector’s Guide to Dean Koontz Web site, takes many, many photos, and typically reads more than 100 books a year.
View all posts by Michael Sauers
But can you even copyright a tweet? I did some research and was unable to come up with a clear answer. There was some academic discussion of the issue, and occasional instances in which Twitter users claimed others were infringing their tweets, but I could not find a clear instance in which someone had actually registered a copyright in a tweet.
