Company Sues Former Employee for $340,000, Claims He ‘Stole’ Twitter Followers
- Posted on December 30, 2011 at 12:07pm by
Becket Adams
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Noah Kravitz, Image Courtesy: bendbulletin.com
An Internet company has sued one of its former employees, saying the worker cost the company thousands of dollars in lost business when he took 17,000 Twitter followers with him when he left the firm.
PhoneDog LLC filed a lawsuit in July against Noah Kravitz, a writer who worked for the Mount Pleasant, S.C., company from 2006 until last year. Attorneys for the website, which reviews mobile devices like phones and tablets, said Kravitz owes them $340,000.
The company said when Kravitz resigned, he changed his Twitter name from PhoneDog_Noah to noahkravitz, and kept his 17,000 followers. The company said the followers should be treated like a customer list, and therefore PhoneDog’s property.
PhoneDog said Kravitz should pay $2.50 per follower per month for eight months, or a total of $340,000.
“The costs and resources invested by PhoneDog Media into growing its followers, fans and general brand awareness through social media are substantial and are considered property of PhoneDog Media LLC,” the company said in a recent New York Times report. “We intend to aggressively protect our customer lists and confidential information, intellectual property, trademark and brands.”
Steve O’Donnell, a patent and intellectual property attorney, said doubted that each follower is worth the $2.50.
“On Twitter, if you hang out long enough, you’ll get hundreds of follows from people who are just gathering accounts and broadcasting their own content — people who aren’t necessarily paying attention to anything PhoneDog has to say,” said O’Donnell, who practices law in Lancaster, Pa. “Twitter followers can come and go. … It’s very transient. It‘s going to be hard for them to put a dollar number on something that’s so ethereal.”
Kravitz, who now lives in Oakland, Calif., eventually went to work for a competitor website and now boasts nearly 24,000 Twitter followers.
In court documents, Kravitz said he used the Twitter account in question mostly for personal musings about sporting events and pop culture and, after leaving the company, even sent out messages at PhoneDog‘s behest about the company’s contests and giveaways. Kravitz said he sent such messages as recently as December 2010 and that PhoneDog only objected to his use of the account after he sued them in June for unpaid wages in an ongoing case.
“Only after that do they come out of the woodwork for the first time and say, ‘Hey, you converted our property,’” Cary Kletter, Kravitz’s attorney, said Thursday. “That case is without merit.”
PhoneDog’s valuation is flawed and inflated, he said.
“To claim that they’re entitled to $2.50 per follower per month defies reason,” Kletter said. “If that’s the case, Kim Kardashian’s account would probably be worth billions of dollars of year.”
Celebrities can get paid for tweets, sometimes $10,000 or more per post.
Erik Heels, a patent and trademark attorney in Boston, said the lawsuit may provide a monetary determination, but the most valuable outcome could be in helping companies in setting up their own social media guidelines.
“The lesson for employers is to make sure you define these things in advance for your employees,” Heels said. “Don’t make any assumptions because you may end up on the wrong side of the lawsuit.”
The lawsuit itself could end up being much bigger than a dispute between Kravitz and his old company.
“This will establish precedent in the online world, as it relates to ownership of social media accounts,” said Henry Cittone, a lawyer in New York who litigates intellectual property disputes. “We’ve actually been waiting to see such a case as many of our clients are concerned about the ownership of social media accounts vis-a-vis their branding.”
Cittone added that a particularly important wrinkle is what value the court might set on the worth of one Twitter follower to a media company, saying the price set could affect future cases involving ownership of social media, reports the Times.
“It all hinges on why the account was opened,” he said. “If it was to communicate with PhoneDog’s customers or build up new customers or prospects, then the account was opened on behalf of PhoneDog, not Mr. Kravitz. An added complexity is that PhoneDog contends Mr. Kravitz was just a contractor in the related partnership/employment case, thus weakening their trade secrets case, unless they can show he was contracted to create the feed.”
A hearing in the case is set for next month in San Francisco. An attorney for PhoneDog president Tom Klein did not immediately respond to a message seeking comment.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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Stoic one
Posted on December 31, 2011 at 7:05pmI think the most telling point is that there is already a dispute over back wages earned……
Report Post »VanGrungy
Posted on December 30, 2011 at 11:46pmThe company is correct.. he built the list using the company name and company time using company resources..
Kravitz should have made a new account and tweeted it‘s existence to the company’s followers..
but I think that twitter followers are only worth 2 cents.. that’s my 2 cents..
Report Post »1389AD
Posted on December 31, 2011 at 5:02amLOL…
How exactly can you “steal” Twitter followers, anyway? What are we, slaves?
My Twitter followers follow me either because they aren’t paying attention to what they are doing, or because I, personally, tweet stuff that they find interesting. Dunno which it is, but either way, my Twitter followers would be of no use to anybody other than myself.
Report Post »Ruler4You
Posted on December 31, 2011 at 10:44amThis “IS” truly sad.
Report Post »Bakko Bomma
Posted on December 31, 2011 at 11:47amTwitter is justly named since it’s the haven for twits.
Report Post »00gabooga
Posted on December 30, 2011 at 7:10pmNote to self: Never do business with PhoneDog.
Report Post »EchoHawk
Posted on December 30, 2011 at 4:16pmAny of you knuckle dragging conservatives figure out what an intellectual property is let me know so I can contact Guinness.
The_Postal
Posted on December 30, 2011 at 5:27pmWe could explain it to you, but you’d need intellect first.
Report Post »JustJP
Posted on December 30, 2011 at 6:12pmThat echo you hear in that empty head of yours is your intellect libiot
Report Post »lukerw
Posted on December 30, 2011 at 2:47pmIt all depends upon… the Employee/Employer Contract!
Report Post »BlackCrow
Posted on December 30, 2011 at 1:53pmShakespeare was right when he said “kill all the lawyers”.
Report Post »BetterDays
Posted on December 30, 2011 at 1:30pmI didn’t tweet “drill” really I didn’t, it was a typo, please don’t hit me AG……………………………
Report Post »Detroit paperboy
Posted on December 30, 2011 at 1:06pmHey Blaze. I love this site, but we wont be offended if you vo over to Drudge and steal a little more red meat, hard hitting , world changing headlines for us to discuss and comment on, twitter, monkeys, tv news bloopers are amusing but can you use them as fillers in between the real stories…… Sheese
Report Post »Detroit paperboy
Posted on December 30, 2011 at 1:00pmThey’re both twits
Report Post »red_white_blue2
Posted on December 30, 2011 at 12:32pmI believe Twitter followers would come under public domain..and yes i studied to be a paralegal
Report Post »garyM
Posted on December 30, 2011 at 12:24pmWell what is the world coming too, men lose their wives cheating with other men everyday with no legal resource and this guy think he has legal grounds to launch a lawsuit on a former employee who stole his twitter followers!!!!!!!ROTF!!!!!!!!!!!
Report Post »garyM
Posted on December 30, 2011 at 12:26pmthe s was suppose to be a C! whoops!
Report Post »Muddbog
Posted on December 30, 2011 at 1:15pmI think you mis-read the article… the employer has a law-suit against him for “stealing” twitter followers… the title reads… “COMPANY SUES FORMER EMPLOYEE FOR $340,000, CLAIMS HE ‘STOLE’ TWITTER FOLLOWERS”
Just a thought…
Report Post »Muddbog
Posted on December 30, 2011 at 1:17pmnevermind… I mis-read your post… sorry the “his” as in “the owners” threw me off. lol
Report Post »JLGunner
Posted on December 30, 2011 at 12:14pmTwiiter fallowers are not company assets, friggin morons.
Report Post »IMPEACHBHO
Posted on December 30, 2011 at 12:10pmMaybe we should file suit on BHO for brainwashing his followers
Report Post »garyM
Posted on December 30, 2011 at 1:32pmI think you’ll lose the case, Obama followers don’t have any brains!
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