Twitter has been under the scanner for quite some time with tweets accused of copyright violations amassing on the microblogging site, but the company has now decided to take action against all such tweets. Per reports, Twitter will no longer delete tweets that have received copyright violation claims, and instead will be replacing the content in question with a message explaining that it's being withheld due to a complaint.
The new copyright law Twitter has introduced applies to both texts and images. As of now, both text and images can be blocked via the new technique, although details surrounding the tweets in question will remain as it was publicly visible. Moreover, any re-tweets of the original post will also reflect the withheld status.
The new report has arrived after the new changes were applied on the Twitter account of @mikko, an executive with computer security firm F-Secure, on Saturday, Nov. 3. Apparently, Mikko posted something that somehow led a copyright owner to demand that Twitter pull the tweet down.
In a nutshell, Twitter has changed the way it responds to the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) copyright notices. Now, rather than removing tweets, it is "withdrawing" them instead. This "withdrawing" has been done to show when and why tweets go missing, apart from bringing transparency to the DMCA process.
For those who are unaware of the DMCA and its sections and sub-sections, Section 512 of the DMCA outlines the statutory requirements necessary for formally reporting copyright infringement, as well as providing instructions on how an affected party can appeal a removal by submitting a compliant counter-notice.
Twitter states that it will "respond to reports of alleged copyright infringement, such as allegations concerning the unauthorized use of a copyrighted image as a profile photo, header photo, or background, allegations concerning the unauthorized use of a copyrighted image uploaded through our photo hosting service, or Tweets containing links to allegedly infringing materials."
Additionally, Twitter says it will continue providing Chilling Effects with a copy of every DMCA takedown request, regardless of whether they come from a huge corporation.
According to a Gigaom report, the DMCA "refers to a law that gives internet companies like Twitter or Google immunity for copyrighted material posted by their users.To preserve this immunity, they have to take down users' material when they receive a notice from a copyright owner; the target of the notice can then send a counter-notice saying the material should not be taken down."
For the ones who have received a copyright notice by mistake, they will need to file a counter-notice with Twitter, as this can later lead to the restoration of the tweet after 10 days. This, of course, depends on the rights holder and if he/she decides against pursuing things further.
