"Your Tweets They Are Belong To Us"

You Own Your Tweets, But So Does Twitter? - PC World. A few pundits have been touting Twitter as a way to market a law practice. I signed up, but I don't tweet or check in a lot; maybe once a week. I do enjoy the legal twitterers; but, like blogging, I don't see a mad dash of lawyers to the new communication tool. In fact, there seem to be more stories about twitter restriction, after a few well publicized instances of twitter wrongdoing. My favorite was the story about the twittering witness. I have seen winks, nods, headshaking, and any number of other signal giving to witnesses in my time; twittering gives new meaning to the term "coaching". That's why I think all lawyers need to examine Twitter's NEW terms of service very carefully. As the author of this post points out, when Twitter can: "use, copy, reproduce, process, adapt, modify, publish, transmit, display and distribute such Content in any and all media or distribution methods (now known or later developed)", I have to ask: "Are you kidding me?". I am an old dirt lawyer. In real property law, if you can enter on to the land, use it in any way you wish, stomp on it, dig out the minerals, and just generally fool around on it, You Own It. As for twittering, Mom's advice still applies: "Don't say anything, Son, that you wouldn't want to see plastered over the front page of your local newspaper." Enough quotes for today. I have to go to the football game, and send a Twitter message to that dumb coach. Let's see some more blitzing, bozo.