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this post was submitted on 04 Nov 2023
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But that's the thing, a bot can't scoop it up without going through the user, without acquiring it from them in some way. Twitter are bypassing the user entirely and taking it from them. Also, a bot is illegitimate, however in selling usernames itself Twitter is effectively legitimising the practice.
Either usernames have no value, in which case Twitter can do with them as they please, or the usernames have value and that value rightfully belongs to the user that holds it.
Most sites that use a unique username free up old ones periodically so I don't think that's the issue here. Usernames have value and that's why they should be freed and auctioned to people that want them. On a proprietary website like Twitter nothing belongs to the user.
But the rules on almost all sites is that they don't have value - the terms and conditions forbid you from trading usernames.
Like I say, they can't have it both ways. Either they have no value and trading is against the terms, or they do have value and can be traded, in which case the website has a duty towards the user as the "bank" where the valuable item is kept. Furthermore, the higher the price Twitter are looking to sell usernames for, the more reasonable the claim against them becomes. $50,000 is a significant amount, one which a claim could reasonably be made for.
Not true. If I make a post on Twitter, that post is my intellectual property. Twitter might claim extensive rights to user posts, as they are on their website and their terms and conditions claim such rights, but the user is still the owner.
Whether or not Twitter can even hold onto all of the rights their terms claim is also tenuous, as there is an argument that consideration (ie payment) should be given in return for those rights. Using the website is not really consideration, as the website is free to use regardless of whether you post content to it.
They can have it both ways. Usernames can have value and Twitter can sell them and users can not sell their own accounts.
I looked into who owns the tweets and Twitter said users own their tweet but a us judge ruled that Twitter owns the tweets. I don't think it's reasonable to think you own a Twitter username and I think its reasonable for Twitter to delete your inactive account and release the username and sell it if they want. I don't think you would win a legal battle and Twitter can update their policy to do whatever they need to do to remove your ownership if you had any.
Link? If it wasn't the US Supreme Court, then the ruling is significantly limited. And even if it was, that only applies to the US. Beyond that, we'd be getting into the nitty gritty of copyright law in specific jurisdictions - so far we've been talking about overall principles of copyright and intellectual property.
Twitter's current terms seem very clear on the matter:
You own the content, Twitter has a licence. They also provide no definition for "Content", so it can easily be argued that the username is content, as it is provided by the user.
Twitter can update their policy as much as they like, but it would ultimately be decided in the courts. Until then nothing is certain, but David doesn't always lose to Goliath, and courts don't like it when a big player is clearly taking advantage of the little guy. $50,000 value would definitely be considered.
More likely though there probably will be no legal battle. Twitter is circling the drain, by the time anything is heard in court they'll be gone. However that doesn't mean they should be allowed to do things like this with no objections.