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- Sports Illustrated model Genevieve Morton sued Twitter for unauthorized use of photos.
- Morton accused the tech company of contributing to the copyright infringement.
- The lawsuit was one of two that Morton brought against the tech giant.
A “Sports Illustrated” swimsuit model alleged that Twitter’s algorithm contributed to copyright infringement by cropping photos of her that were posted by other users. This created unauthorized derivative works, she said.
Earlier this month, Genevieve Morton sued Twitter in federal court, alleging in part that the company was slow to remove its copyrighted material, which had been posted by unauthorized accounts.
Morton has asked for at least $ 10 million in damages. It’s “frustrating” to try to control your own image, Morton told Insider.
Morton said, “Tech companies and social media platforms should be on the side of artists and content creators because that’s what makes these sites interesting and valuable.
She added: “When I learned that Twitter had developed artificially smart cropping tools using male engineers who impose their own biases, that was enough.”
The lawsuit, filed on September 3, cited both Twitter and TweetDeck as defendants. He also listed Magic Pony Technology, a photo algorithm company acquired by Twitter in 2016, as a defendant.
Morton’s attorney, Jennifer Holliday, declined to discuss the lawsuit in detail, saying only that it appeared to be the first time Twitter has been sued over the algorithm. A Twitter spokesperson declined to comment.
In his complaint, Morton, whose Twitter account @genevievemorton had over 80,000 subscribers, another unrelated account said, @city_tits, had posted two of his copyrighted photos without permission.
The lawsuit listed the owners of this handful as defendants, although they were not identified by name. The account has since been suspended for violating Twitter rules.
Morton has filed takedown requests for both photos. One kidnapping took about three months, the other about five weeks, according to the lawsuit.
While @city_tits’s posts were live, they got a total of 67 likes, according to the complaint. Morton has asked for at least $ 150,000 in damages for each of those tastes, totaling more than $ 10 million, according to the filing.
But Morton’s lawsuit said the actual damage could be higher. Since Twitter does not display the number of times a post has been viewed, it was not clear how many Twitter users saw the photos in question while they were live, the lawsuit said. .
If there were more than 67 breaches, the total damages claimed would likely be higher.
Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Models (L to R) Genevieve Morton, Catrinel Menghia and Kate Upton.
Ray Stubblebine / Reuters
Morton sued Twitter last year over a similar case, alleging that @SpyIRL posted some of its copyrighted material.
Twitter has filed a motion to dismiss most of the claims, which the court granted under Section 230, said Eric Goldman, associate dean of the University of Santa Clara School of Law, in an article by blog. This case is ongoing.
In Morton’s retrial, she added a charge against Twitter for its algorithm.
Her complaint accused the company of using “the salience algorithm to crop and edit the forged images without Ms. Morton’s permission, cropping the forged images of Ms. Morton, thereby creating an unauthorized derivative work.”
For Morton’s trial to be successful, she would have to establish that Twitter “clearly facilitated the incitement, which most social media platforms don’t,” Peter Lee, professor of law at the UC Davis School of Law.
Lee added: “The turning point here, however, has to do with the claim that Twitter’s algorithm deliberately altered Ms. Morton’s images. Whether Twitter did this to allow those images to escape automated searches. of infringing material and of inducing a violation, then it is possible that Twitter could be held liable for any infringement. “
Between July and December 2020, Twitter received approximately 170,000 takedown notices for copyrighted material, according to the company’s statement. Transparency Center.
About 60% of requests during that period resulted in the removal of hardware from the platform, up about five percentage points from the previous six months, the company said.
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