Copyright Infringement and The Social Network

Maybe it's all the studying I've been doing for the APR exam that's got me thinking about copyrights and The Social Network, which I saw the other day at the Avalon on Connecticut Avenue. Very good movie, though my wife did compare it somewhat disparagingly to The Graduate for its lack of an iconic message for our times. Harsh.

The crux of the film is the issue of whether Mark Zuckerberg "stole" the idea of Facebook from some Harvard crew champions--buff, muscled Aryan types who actually exhibited more personality in the film than you'd expect from your typical baddies. (They decided pummeling the scrawny computer programmer was inappropriate, as other baddies in other films might do, since they were "Men of Harvard". Very interesting).

Whether it happened this way in real life or if it was merely dramatized, these two rich guys/students (blond twins, naturally) first connected with Zuckerberg after learning about his reputation as a first-rate programmer. They asked him to help develop an exclusive social networking site for them and their 'elite' Harvard friends. Zuckerberg said he'd help, then apparently led them on for several weeks telling them he was working on code for the site, or was too busy to work on the site, or this thing or that thing with them apparently growing more and more perplexed with his excuses while he, inspired by the idea of an "exclusive" social networking site, pursued his own vision for what that might look like. Soon Harvard students were introduced to Facebook and the crew champions hit the roof.

Is that copyright infringement? Judging by the facts presented in the movie, the answer is an unequivocal no. Copyright law states that an idea is protected from public use as soon as a creative expression of the idea exists; when the Harvard crew guys met up with Zuckerberg, they had an idea for an exclusive social networking site but it did not exist in any manifest form. There may be other areas of legality surrounding intellectual property that I'm not as familiar with but in terms of whether these Harvard guys could reasonably claim a copyright on an elite social networking site, it only existed in conversation until Zuckerberg came along.

Additionally, if they DID want to complain about his theft, they themselves might have been asked to answer to the fact that they were 'borrowing' the idea of a social networking site in the first place. But as Zuckerberg says during the film, look, you have an idea for a chair, and chairs have existed for a long time. But you still have the legal right to make and sell your own chair.

The Social Network does suggest that Zuckerberg did make a kind of gentleman's agreement with the Harvard crew guys in agreeing to help them in the first place and then was less than candid with them as he pursued his own vision for an exclusive social network (Facebook, based on 'friends'). There are ethical issues there, no doubt. But if the question comes down to legal issues, then it wouldn't seem he broke any laws.

Of course, the film does conclude with the news that he settled a lawsuit with the Harvard crew guys for $65 million, so there might have been other issues involved in the real-life play-by-play that didn't make it to celluloid. But that goes beyond the scope the film The Social Network and this post. The movie was very much worth seeing and I recommend it to anyone who'd care to see how a social network phenomenon came to life.

Tweeting For Your Nonprofit (Part II)

Below are additional tips and suggestions for improving your nonprofit’s exposure by using Twitter. These follow a post generated on Sunday, June 7.

4. Follow Your Impact on Twitter By Monitoring Retweets

How are your followers responding to your tweets? Are they retweeting your messages to disseminate them to an even wider audience? Occasionally, click your profile name on the menu that appears on the right side of the screen to find out how many tweets sent by other tweeple reference your profile name. Many could include retweets of former postings you generated. Continue building this loyalty among followers so they become great mouthpieces for your organization and its cause.

5. Drive Followers to Your Web Site (and Measure the Impact)

Thanks to http://www.tinyurl.com/, Twitter users can convert long URL addresses into short pithy links to web sites, which can be embedded in tweets. Indeed, an excellent way to ensure a loyal audience of Twitter followers is to serve as a reliable information resource. Sending Tiny URL links to other web pages and documents is a good way to do that. If you monitor the traffic your web site receives (and if you don't, you should), you can measure the impact of tweets on your followers by tweeting links to your web site (perhaps to new videos, pages or project success stories recently posted) and then determining whether your web traffic has increased. It's not an exact science, but if you notice a significant uptick in your web site visitors shortly after you've posted a tweet with a web site link, you'll have a good guess why people came by).

6. Tweet Often

As Woody Allen said, fifty percent of success is just showing up. Or was it sixty, or seventy or eighty percent? I forget, but the point remains. Tweeting often convinces your followers and the Twitterverse that you're in it for the long haul, that you didn't just set up an account to see what it is like. One tweet I received the other day linked to an article claiming that more than 80 percent of Twitter profiles have fewer than 10 followers. Individuals just passing through don't interest other tweeple and so, to ensure you are not one of those, tweet loud and tweet often. You'll generate respect and engagement (though it may take time) and, in the end, you'll have discovered a great tool that is already having a huge impact in online communications and allows you to spread the word about your great cause and mission!

Tweeting For Your Nonprofit (Part I)

I wish Twitter had been around back in the days when I was a Peace Corps Volunteer in Sri Lanka and the communications director of a non-profit humanitarian organization, American Near East Refugee Aid. Twitter can help communications professionals connect with new supporters, donors and other stakeholders, and develop exposure for the needs facing underserved populations around the world. For those professionals currently tasked with fundraising and generating visibility for your mission or who want to incorporate the use of Twitter into your marketing strategy, here are a few tips and suggestions.

1. Find mutually passionate individuals utilizing Twitter and hashtags

If your organization uses Twitter, one way to reach potential supporters is to find them with hashtags. Tweets are often followed by a number sign and word (e.g. #gaza). These "hashtags" offer a system for filing tweets by subject. At http://www.hashtags.org/, enter a keyword that is critical to your mission in the box at the top of the screen. Other individuals who have tweeted about this subject with the hashtag will appear in a list that scrolls down the screen. (ANERA, the organization I worked for, provides aid to economically and socially challenged individuals in the Middle East, hence my above example of the Gaza hashtag). Checking out the profiles of those tweeting about subjects related to your mission may encourage you to follow those matching your target audiences. In turn, the connection you establish may encourage them to follow you, as well, creating the basis for a relationship.

2. Find Reporters Who Tweet

Keep a sharp eye out for articles that appear in traditional media related to your mission and/or cause. More and more reporters are using Twitter, and it would be worthwhile, when you find articles highlighting your area of concern, to research the reporter online and determine whether they have Twitter profiles. Following reporters positions you to serve as a resource (and a potential interview source) as they develop more editorial related to the subject. Establishing a Twitter connection also provides access to the reporter's followers, another channel for identifying stakeholders. Scrolling through these followers can help you find other individuals your organization may want to know about, as many of them likely are interested in the same topic as you (i.e. the type of editorial generated by the reporter).

3. Follow Other Fundraising/Charitable Organizations

Are organizations utilizing Twitter to generate coverage for a capital fundraising campaign? Are they tweeting statistics to highlight the plight of underserved populations around the world and to encourage donations? Social media has been, is, and maybe always will be a work-in-progress and in flux. Following other organizations to find out how they are maximizing the value of their presence on Twitter can provide you with ideas or examples for how to successfully execute a communications strategy. One internationally-oriented organization that has a great presence (and a lot of followers!) on Twitter is @charitywater. Another good one is @theonecampaign.

Sustaining your reputation on Twitter

At a breakfast meeting of PR and marketing communications professionals in Broomfield, CO yesterday, five of us discussed how a social media tool such as Twitter can be used to reach customers and convince them to make purchases.

That question, by itself, has a simple answer: it can't. However, utilizing Twitter as one tool of a broader marketing mix of tactics can help position your product or service for greater exposure among audiences that otherwise might not know what you offer--and you get that at no cost. Assumedly, your tweets have been customized to reach the right tweeple (I loved writing that!) and include links to a web site or blog with more information about that product/service.

In one sense, Twitter is just another channel to deliver a message to a targeted audience. But in another sense, being on Twitter has a perceived value (real or not) that helps sustain the communicator's reputation and potentially the product or service. Sustain a reputation? Don't you mean enhance it?

Not really. Nowadays, everyone is on Twitter, Facebook and/or LinkedIn (MySpace is definitely yesterday's papers) and we feel compelled to participate in the social media conversation. It's an unspoken contract and what's more important is that a growing number of our customers expect communicators, in particular, to participate even if they don't know why.

So when it comes to measuring the impact of tweeting about your product or service, the question is one about quality more than quantity. It's not what you gain by doing it. It's about what you stand to lose--being perceived as out of touch, uninformed, not up-to-date--if you're NOT tweeting. And if you're out of touch, what does that say about your product or service? (As an aside, evaluating the success of your marketing tactics is always important and Aaron Uhrmacher has a helpful blog post called How to Measure Social Media ROI for Business.)

Twitter has brought us all back in time to high school where you absolutely must be fashionable. I suppose I'm willing to go along with it, just as long as they don't bring back big hair and mullets.