Who owns the IP rights to a Twitter account?  We associate such accounts with social media tools such as Facebook, which are deeply personal in nature. But is it really any different from any online account that you would use in the course of employment, such as a workplace subscription to a data library, or a collaboration tool such as Salesforce.com? An employer based in South Carolina puts their ex-employee’s Twitter account into this category, (Link to Article) claiming that when he left the job, the employee should have left behind the login, the Twitter account, and the account’s 17,000 followers.  In its lawsuit against the former employee (Update: Phonedog v. Kravitz – Amended Complaint), Phonedog has valued the account at $340,000 ($2.50 per follower per month).  

In Eagle v. Morgan the defendant employer claims that a former employee misappropriated (among other things) a LinkedIn account and its connections.

The law is not clear in this interesting area, which overlaps with IP law, employment law, and the law of trade secrets. One of the problems with a trade secrets claim is that Twitter followers and LinkedIn connections are not secret, and it’s questionable whether competitors could derive any value from knowing the information even if it was secret. Followers and connections are just that, they aren’t paying customers. US litigation should provide some clarity on these issues as this emerges more regularly. To date, there do not appear to be any Canadian cases that consider this point.

Related Reading: Who Owns Social Media Contacts: Employers or Employees?

Calgary – 07:00 MST