Why Movie Studios Happily Violate Journalists' Copyright

By: Felix Salmon | Reuters

The white-goods queen of Eighth Avenue asks my opinion on @aoscott adgate. I take requests, over here, so: is it kosher for a movie producer to selectively quote from the Twitter feed of the NYT’s movie reviewer, in a print ad, even when the reviewer in question explicitly said he would not give permission?

The simple answer is no. The tweet from Tony Scott was used in the NYT print ad precisely because he’s a public figure of authority to NYT readers. As a public figure, he’s entitled to determine when and whether he’s used to promote some commercial interest. Besides, the use of the tweet is arguably a violation both of copyright and of Twitter’s terms of service (which say that tweets can’t be used in advertising “without explicit permission of the original content creator”).