Photo Copyrights on Twitter

Hello Anton, I have a question: Have you ever looked into photo copyrights on Twitter? I cannot find clear rules, and everybody just uses Googled photos, but I'm not sure whether that's officially illegal and whether that can have consequences in the future? Thanks in advance!

Answer:

To be honest, it SHOULD be really big legal copyright issues with copy pasting pictures on Twitter. It's the owners who are responsible for what they tweet, just like anything else. Picture credits or buying pictures are always necessary normally Online on any kind of website -- Printed Magazines can never print a picture without paying for it. This is not what's happening on Twitter. On Twitter it doesn't seem like a big deal stealing pictures from artists, photographers and similar because no one really does it. 

So yes, there are a lot of big Twitter account holders on Twitter who can get sued and get into very big issues. However, since there are so many account holders, I am confident that over 10,000 accounts are stealing pictures without paying for them or mentioning it's source or even give a name as a credit, I think there will be a very small chance that YOU will get sued -- You will most likely have heard about someone getting sued or in other problems before you've get into them yourself.

Also, most websites who are "stealing" pictures, can get away with it by having "Terms and Conditions" on their website stating that they will remove every picture within 48 hours if the picture owner want it to happen. If you want to be safe, mention this on your BIO or at least on a website that is linked from your Twitter account.

However, most likely, if you get sued, you will have to get sued internationally since you most likely don't live in the same country as the photographer. This will easily give you will at least months to remove all your copyrighted content. Haha, so you can say, sad but true, it seems to be easy to get away with murder on Twitter. 

I have been in problems, but not a big issue so far. Last time was today, I got a mail about my Science Twitter account and he also posted a status update on his Facebook account.

Woops. However, he also mailed me this: 

Hello,

You used a picture of mine on twitter which is great, but you did not credit me as the photographer. This is not cool. You are not in trouble in any way, I would just like you to share another one of my star pictures with credit to make up for it:)

Please msg me so we can work this out. Thank you... Here is the picture.

Thanks,
Dave

Bad things happens all the time. Twitter should not be a website where you don't accept original content, however, always try to make your best to give credits to the photographer, and never use content from websites who charges for using their pictures. And make it easy to contact you if there would be any kind of issues. This person for example who wrote me about this issue, I will for example definitely give him credit in future!

Good luck mate.