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First, is a tweet even a thing you can own, legally? You can own the copyright and you can enter into a contract where you promise not to delete it, but a tweet
by bdonlan 6y ago
First, is a tweet even a thing you can own, legally? You can own the copyright and you can enter into a contract where you promise not to delete it, but a tweet is ultimately something that is displayed and processed by, and exists at the pleasure of Twitter; they're not a party to your NFT shenanigans and therefore not bound to any of it.
As for the hypothetical contract not to delete it yourself, you'd probably have a good argument that there was no clear meeting of the minds - without an explicit description of what the author intended to be bound to by selling a NFT you'll have a hard time getting the courts to enforce anything about it.
- paul_f 6y agoWhat if I sell an NFT of one of my tweets that is subsequently taken down for violating Twitters terms? Am I liable? This whole concept IMO is absurd.
- qqii 6y agoThere's nuance to what it mean to "sell one of your tweets". What does it mean to own a tweet? What rights are you selling? Ignoring NFTs you could define selling your tweet as: * Selling the copyright to your tweet * Selling the right to delete your tweet Digital ownership is a new and nuanced concept that doesn't have good analogues. Ownership through public/private keys has no analogue and also feel absurd in any analogy using safes and keys.
- qqii 6y agoThis is really the problem, digital ownership outside of asymmetric cryptography is not well defined in law. Digitally, it is perfectly clear: You own the NFT. Through what is written on a tweet and a website it can be interpreted as the representation of Jack's tweet. You don't have any further owenship or rights.