The use for Twitter for infringement of Intellectual Property Rights is a distinct possibility that is likely to emerge as time passes by.

What is the stand of Twitter on your content that you post?

Twitter believes that the content that you post is yours and all Intellectual Property in the said content belongs to you. However Twitter only recognizes the rite to be produced on and redistributed to other users.

The following are the copyright conditions laid by Twitter

1. We claim no intellectual property rights over the material you provide to the Twitter service. Your profile and materials uploaded remain yours. You can remove your profile at any time by deleting your account. This will also remove any text and images you have stored in the system.

2. We encourage users to contribute their creations to the public domain or consider progressive licensing terms.

3. Twitter undertakes to obey all relevant copyright laws. We will review all claims of copyright infringement received and remove content deemed to have been posted or distributed in violation of any such laws. To make a claim, please provide us with the following:

1. A physical or electronic signature of the copyright owner or the person authorized to act on its behalf;

2. A description of the copyrighted work claimed to have been infringed;

3. A description of the infringing material and information reasonably sufficient to permit Twitter to locate the material;

4. Your contact information, including your address, telephone number, and email;

5. A statement by you that you have a good faith belief that use of the material in the manner complained of is not authorized by the copyright owner, its agent, or the law; and

6. A statement that the information in the notification is accurate, and, under the pains and penalties of perjury, that you are authorized to act on behalf of the copyright owner.

(copyright conditions courtsey: Twitter.com)

Whenever somebody tweets or posts a tweet, he or she is actually authoring something in a tangible concrete manner. However mundane useless irrelevant or diverse the said 140 characters combination could be, that itself constitutes an original literary work within the meaning of law and as such any tweet that is tweeted upon by any Twitterer is protected by copyright protection as per law prevailing in different jurisdiction.

Thus if any person unauthorizedly copies your tweet and commercially exploits the same, you have a right to sue that person.

Further, Twitter can also be used for the purposes of further infringing upon the intellectual property rights including trademarks of legal entities. As such, Twitter would also be subject to all laws of different jurisdiction pertaining to protection and preservation of trademarks. Thus if any person deliberately or fraudulently takes on the brand name of a leading entity as a user name on Twitter, and starts using or misusing the same, then the actual owner of the said trade mark could sue the imposter for appropriate reliefs in a court of law.

(courtsey :twitter.com, click here for the above stated terms)