I don't have a Twitter account yet, and I'm not imminently about to set one up, but I've been noting how many people are Twittering with their real name, or at least pretty obvious iterations of it. And I recently read this, which notes how more and more people are starting to use their real names to communicate online. And so that started me thinking about situations where someone "steals" someone else's name -- particularly where the stolen name is not completely generic (like "Nick Brown") and is either pretty uncommon, or else totally unique.
If someone steals someone else's name to use for, say, a blog authorship name or a twitter account, there are three obvious things they might do.
First, they might actually use the account to pretend that they really are the person whose name they are using. For example, a girl at Nick's work shares her name with a radio DJ and opened a Twitter account last week. Meanwhile, many people have assumed she is impersonating the DJ and have sent her messages telling her not to. So, if she had actually stolen the name and purposely impersonated the DJ, that would fit into my first situation, and it would be pretty easy to stop this through legal means.
Second, they might use the account to parody or mock or just-pretend-they-are-someone-while-making-it-obvious-they're-not. Like the (now defunct) Real Steve Jobs. This is a little bit murky in some situations, but can often be at least colorable fair use. Again, there is a legal solution/legal precedent.
Third, though, they might use the account to simply sit on the name until someone comes along willing to pay for it. So, my question/wonder for this post is, does this violate cybersquatting laws? It's not actually a domain name -- and in a world of search engines, it is far, far more important than a domain name. If someone is sitting on the Twitter account with my unique name when I go to sign up, do I have any legal recourse against them? Because now that people are moving away from anonymity online, I feel like this might become a much bigger problem. With blogs from mainstream blogging services, with Twitter, etc. Thoughts?
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5 comments:
So who are you, and what have you done with Nika?!
Nika is just trying to justify 9 months of boondoggling in England as an "educational" experience.
Meanwhile in France Nika's little sister, Sage, can't go to class because all the teachers are on strike.
And Zebby claims that he has to "get his partying in" before he is done with Hampshire.
I hope you all have kids just like yourselves. I will have some stories to tell them.
The NY Sunday Times sports section had an article about MBA (thats basketball Nika) players who have had their names spoofed on twitter.
See, exactly! Name-spoofing on Twitter is definitely a big deal.
So when will the Nika Twitter be open for business?!?
Eh, I'm not personally all that into Twitter. Although I may break down and start it soon. Maybe. Probably not for a while, though.
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