> I'm not sure how a Twitter TOS violation turns into DMCA damages. It didn't directly. The photographer retains copyright of photos, and sued the companies fo

> I'm not sure how a Twitter TOS violation turns into DMCA damages. It didn't directly. The photographer retains copyright of photos, and sued the companies for regular copyright violation. One of the companies' defenses was to claim that they actually had a license, and therefore it was not a copyright violation. Users who tweet photos do grant certain royalty-free reproduction rights to both Twitter, and third-party syndicators authorized by Twitter. See section 5 here: https://twitter.com/tos https://twitter.com/tos. Therefore, if AFP were using the photos in accordance with terms authorized by Twitter, they would be covered by this license, and they wouldn't be violating the photographer's copyright. The judge ruled that their reuse was not within the scope of these terms, however, and therefore not covered by that grant of a royalty-free license. Therefore the defense fails, and they're assessed damages, not for the Twitter ToS violation, but for reproducing photos without a valid license from the photographer.