[twitter-dev] Re: Question about Twitter use in library names
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?
Re: [twitter-dev] Re: Question about Twitter use in library names
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?
[twitter-dev] Re: Question about Twitter use in library names
On Jan 14, 8:04 am, DeWitt Clinton dclin...@gmail.com wrote: 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 In general, the legal advice I have received from the IP attorneys I hang out with (in the Portland, Oregon startup community) on such matters is: a. Make sure you have your organization structure work done first (C- corp, S-corp, LLC, etc.). Sole proprietorships / partnerships and intellectual property don't in general mix very well. b. Create unique stuff wherever possible, like Xobni (Inbox spelled backwards) rather than BuzzTrack for Outlook. c. Hire an attorney and *listen* to what they advise you to do! Dave Frishberg's My Attorney Bernie is the standard reference. ;-) Silly crap happens - like Apple Computer vs. Apple Records, the University of Oregon having to pay money to Disney for a duck logo that looks sorta like Donald, etc. So, even if Biz says it's OK, I personally wouldn't use tweet anywhere that a generic word like message would suffice, for example. I wouldn't use Twit or Tweep or Tw-anything. And I wouldn't use anything avian at all. -- M. Edward (Ed) Borasky http://borasky-research.net/smart-at-znmeb A mathematician is a device for turning coffee into theorems. ~ Paul Erdős
[twitter-dev] Re: Question about Twitter use in library names
It's been four weeks since I originally asked this question. Is there any chance at all it will be answered in the near future? The time it takes to get a simple straight answer is mind-boggling. On Dec 22 2009, 11:14 am, Duane Roelands duane.roela...@gmail.com wrote: Hopefully, I haven't asked a question with an unfortunate answer. When I look at the number of great libraries with Twitter in the name, it would be a real kick in the teeth to the developer community. On Dec 22, 12:09 am, Ryan Sarver rsar...@twitter.com wrote: Just wanted to follow up with everyone and let you know we are still on this and haven't forgotten about the thread. Hopefully will have an answer for you soon. Best, Ryan 2009/12/5 Ryan Sarver rsar...@twitter.com Duane, We definitely don't want to be sending any nastygrams, especially for something that helps the community. I put a note into our legal / marks department so that I can get an answer back to you and everyone else. Please bear with us as it could take a bit, but I'll get you an answer. 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?
Re: [twitter-dev] Re: Question about Twitter use in library names
We're talking about lawyers here Duane. Straight forward is not a term that they understand. On 1/1/2010 2:31 PM, Duane Roelands wrote: It's been four weeks since I originally asked this question. Is there any chance at all it will be answered in the near future? The time it takes to get a simple straight answer is mind-boggling. On Dec 22 2009, 11:14 am, Duane Roelandsduane.roela...@gmail.com wrote: Hopefully, I haven't asked a question with an unfortunate answer. When I look at the number of great libraries with Twitter in the name, it would be a real kick in the teeth to the developer community. On Dec 22, 12:09 am, Ryan Sarverrsar...@twitter.com wrote: Just wanted to follow up with everyone and let you know we are still on this and haven't forgotten about the thread. Hopefully will have an answer for you soon. Best, Ryan 2009/12/5 Ryan Sarverrsar...@twitter.com Duane, We definitely don't want to be sending any nastygrams, especially for something that helps the community. I put a note into our legal / marks department so that I can get an answer back to you and everyone else. Please bear with us as it could take a bit, but I'll get you an answer. Best, Ryan On Fri, Dec 4, 2009 at 1:39 PM, Duane Roelandsduane.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?
[twitter-dev] Re: Question about Twitter use in library names
Hopefully, I haven't asked a question with an unfortunate answer. When I look at the number of great libraries with Twitter in the name, it would be a real kick in the teeth to the developer community. On Dec 22, 12:09 am, Ryan Sarver rsar...@twitter.com wrote: Just wanted to follow up with everyone and let you know we are still on this and haven't forgotten about the thread. Hopefully will have an answer for you soon. Best, Ryan 2009/12/5 Ryan Sarver rsar...@twitter.com Duane, We definitely don't want to be sending any nastygrams, especially for something that helps the community. I put a note into our legal / marks department so that I can get an answer back to you and everyone else. Please bear with us as it could take a bit, but I'll get you an answer. 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?
[twitter-dev] Re: Question about Twitter use in library names
IANAL but you might want to look do a trademark search. Some relevant links are at http://uspto.gov/ . On Dec 4, 1:39 pm, Duane Roelands duane.roela...@gmail.com wrote: 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?
