Twitter sued for copyright infringement & for ignoring DMCA takedown requests

The recent rumblings about the Twitter copyright Infringement Report feature, and possibly overzealous removals of tweets such as Jim Edwards screendumped graphs on copyright ground have signalled a change in the platforms treatment of copyrights.

For years copyright infringing accounts tweeting photos have amassed millions of twitter followers using other peoples work, and despite passionate users like Picpedant who fights infringement and spam with snarky corrections, photographers seemingly had no recourse to fight back. DMCA takedown requests would go unanswered.

This week, Jennifer Rondinelli Reilly has filed a suit in California federal court, with a demand for jury trial. Her suit argues that despite filing countless takedown requests, Twitter didn't remove the media, and a Quick search reveals that there's still plenty of images left. At the time of the suits filing, most of the tweets still remained online but Twitter has done a bang-up job of cleaning house in response today.

Jennifer Rondinelli Reilly is asking for damages, and while I Am Not A Lawyer but I sometimes play one on TV, it looks to me as if she has a good case. While the DMCA prevents service providers from being liable for the acts of their users, a consistently ignored DMCA means that Twitter did nothing and failed to take action even when alerted. Twitter stock owners, who saw a low of $18.47 today, may want to hold on to their hats as this case makes its way through the judicial system.