‘Twitter takes stricter action against copyright infringement’

Twitter seems to be removing messages that infringe someone else’s copyright from its website. Among other things, jokes that users copy from others seem to be targeted. The policy to protect content owners has been around for some time, but according to many, it was not followed.

The deletion of posts was noticed by the Twitter account Plagiarism Is Bad. This account has long been advocating for stricter copyright rules on the social networking site, including maintaining a list of copyright infringers on Twitter. Posts referenced by the account show that the content was removed after a request was made by the copyright holder.

Among other things, jokes that have been ‘re-used’ by others seem to be banned from Twitter. Although Twitter already had copyright rules that prohibit copying other people’s content, the website now seems to be taking stricter action against copyright infringement. However, the company behind Twitter has not yet responded to the takedowns.

The site has had a form online for some time to stand which allows copyright holders to request to take copyrighted material offline. It is part of the US dmca law, where the site owner will not be sued as long as it cooperates in the removal of copyrighted material at the request of the owners.

BREAKING NEWS: Twitter is hiding tweets reported stolen. And it’s referring to the author as a “copyright holder” pic.twitter.com/DkteWMZ7zg

— Plagiarism Is Bad (@PlagiarismBad) July 25, 2015