Something new to be outraged on the internet about

[memnus]

If you're on Twitter and you haven't heard of Twitshirt yet, it's time you did. I won't do them the honor of giving an actual like, but they don't make themselves hard to find. The basic idea is this: You give them twenty dollars, and they send you a t-shirt with your favorite tweet on it, no matter who actually wrote it. They soothe their consciences by setting aside fifty cents for the author of the tweet, if they ever bother to go find out that there's some measly amount of money available to them. And of course you can block your tweets from being printed on t-shirts! Just send them your username and password.

If you're not a little angry yet, please read that again a couple times.

I don't know if there will be a shitstorm about this. On the one hand, I kind of hope there is, because then they might get the picture that there's some moral and perhaps even legal issues in their business model. On the other hand, the level of maturity I see in shitstorms on the internet is rarely what I expect to actually create change. So there's a few simple steps to follow.

1. Change your Twitter password. I recommend "DontShirtMeBro".
2. Go to the Twitshirt opt-out page and enter your username and new password.
3. Change your Twitter password back to its usual highly-secure self.
4 (And this is the most important one to me). Send them an @ message, DM, or email saying that their service should be opt-in, rather than opt-out. Be polite, and only use words you'd hear on the Disney channel. Be outraged, be forceful, but be eloquent.
5. Encourage others to do the same.

Presumably as their blacklist and @ reply box fill up, they'll get the picture.

click

Comments

[willworker.livejournal.com]

FWIW, I suspect that things posted to Twitter become property of Twitter/In the public domain/something like that, and so Twitshirts are probably entirely legal.

That is, however, the worst opt-in/out arrangement I've ever heard of.

Steve

[derakon.livejournal.com]

WTF do they need your password for to opt you out?

[zhukora1.livejournal.com]

Maybe to authenticate that it's really you, and not somebody trying to take your ~*creative genius*~ away from the twitshirt profiteering racket community against your will? Still, it seems like there should be better ways to do that. :P

[memnus.livejournal.com]

What zhukora1 said makes the most sense. Either that or it's a troll fishing for passwords while pissing off the internet, which is the idea behind steps 1 and 3.

[(Anonymous)]

FWIW, at least in the US, you retain copyright to whatever you write. Unless you specifically granted rights to someone else (which, with Twitter, you do not), you own all your tweets. CNN publishes stories on the web all the time that you can read without charge, but I can assure you they still retain rights to them.

[archonsengine.livejournal.com]

I've been trying to convince myself to sign up for Twitter for a couple of weeks now. This is enough to keep me from doing so any time soon.

Though, truth be told, I'd be less offended if the person being quoted got paid more than 2.5%. It still wouldn't be okay by any stretch, though.

[gwillen.livejournal.com]

Wow, have they backed down already?

I went to find the place where I could buy such a shirt, and confirm they wanted my password for an opt-out, but I just got an error page instead, and their site doesn't mention this offer anywhere...

[gwillen.livejournal.com]

Nevermind, apparently there are several Twitter t-shirt websites. <.

[gwillen.livejournal.com]

Also, for the record I would advocate AGAINST opting-out using their method. They have no legitimate basis to request it; sending them an angry tweet should be more than enough, legally, to demonstrate that you deny permission. (Not to mention that legally it should be opt-in, but.)

Furthermore, if they actually did want to take over your Twitter account, they would have more than enough time to log in using a script between the time you give them the password and the time you change it back, and it's not clear to me how long their session would persist after you changed the password back (but probably indefinitely.)

[gwillen.livejournal.com]

Anonymous is correct; your tweets are your property, not Twitter's. Because they are both so short and so casual, a copyright case over a tweet would be difficult to make, as a court might find that 140 characters simply aren't enough to amount to a "publication". But certainly nobody other than the author has rights to it, if any rights are to be had at all.

(Additionally, the fact that they are charging money for the shirts tips the balance of the copyright case towards the author of the tweet; I don't know if it tips it far enough to make it winnable.)

[willworker.livejournal.com]

And the Twitter EULA doesn't say "We ownz j00r content"? I thought most such sites did.

Steve

current tweet says...

[ellefromtheeast.livejournal.com]

"We’ve heard your feedback—thank you. We're going to reverse the polarity, and relaunch later as an opt-in service. http://twitshirt.com/"

Thanks for the heads up, though. A very uncool violation of IP.