Right, I agree that the public statements (both Biz's post and Ryan's
comment here) are all aligned with what we expected and asked for. I'm
simply encouraging and hoping for the Terms to be updated to reflect that
position and remove the ambiguity for library, client, and service authors.
Doubly important now that third parties are going so far as to implement
their own backends for the Twitter API itself, especially with respect to
patent and copyright (for the docs).
BTW, here is what the Terms (http://twitter.com/tos) currently read,
effective: September 18, 2009:
All right, title, and interest in and to the Services (excluding Content
provided by users) are and will remain the exclusive property of Twitter and
its licensors. The Services are protected by copyright, trademark, and other
laws of both the United States and foreign countries. Nothing in the Terms
gives you a right to use the Twitter name or any of the Twitter trademarks,
logos, domain names, and other distinctive brand features. Any feedback,
comments, or suggestions you may provide regarding Twitter, or the Services
is entirely voluntary and we will be free to use such feedback, comments or
suggestions as we see fit and without any obligation to you.
Biz's post was written July, 2009, so if you just take it at face value, the
most recent Terms actually supersede his statement. Again, I'm personally
reasonably confident that wasn't the intention, hence these ongoing threads
on the developer list.
-DeWitt
On Thu, Jan 14, 2010 at 3:43 AM, Rich rhyl...@gmail.com wrote:
Tweet appears to have been answered here
http://blog.twitter.com/2009/07/may-tweets-be-with-you.html
On Jan 13, 7:51 pm, DeWitt Clinton dclin...@gmail.com wrote:
That's great news. Thank you, Ryan.
How about terms like tweet and retweet? Or more generally, any word
on
the questions raised in the Question about licensing thread?
http://groups.google.com/group/twitter-development-talk/browse_thread...
In particular, it would be great to get clarification in writing on
twitter.com -- not sure if your mail here is binding :) -- about the
terms
for acceptable trademark usage, copyright claims, and patent claims, for
third party libraries and third party implementations of the Twitter API.
I fully understand that these are difficult questions, and certainly
appreciate the effort it takes to get all the legal concerns addressed.
Thanks again for chasing these down!
-DeWitt
On Wed, Jan 13, 2010 at 10:48 AM, Ryan Sarver rsar...@twitter.com
wrote:
Duane,
I've been able to follow up with our lawyers and they confirmed that it
is
ok to include Twitter in the name of libraries that developers build.
Sorry it took so long to follow up, but I wanted to make sure we got a
strong, final answer back before responding.
Best, Ryan
On Fri, Dec 4, 2009 at 1:39 PM, Duane Roelands
duane.roela...@gmail.comwrote:
A question for the Twitter team:
I'm the developer and maintainer of an open source library called
TwitterVB. Can I expect a nastygram from your lawyers at some
point? Or is there some way I can have the project vetted to avoid
such a thing in the future?
