Court Order Served Over TWITTER: Blaney's Blarney Impersonator In Breach Of Copyright

Here is a first: the High Court in England has given their official stamp of approval for a court order to be served... over Twitter. The order will be tweeted to the anonymous writer behind Blaney's Blarney Twitter feed -- a feed that violates copyright law by using the name of a right-wing political blogger.

The BBC reports:

The blogger, who is also a lawyer and owns the firm serving the order, said that he thought that it was the first time Twitter had been used to deliver a court order.

The injunction - known as the Blaney's Blarney Order - is due to be served at 1930 BST and will include a link to the text of the full court order.

Comments

[DanniD]

It's a good thing I quit checking my Twitter account months ago. Tee Hee!

[Startreklivz]

sadly, that may not protect you; one of the MANY reasons to abandon FaceBook and Twitter is the body of law developing that serving process over the Internet may be as legal as having papers physically served upon you.

[BenjaminPhillips]

This kinda makes me want to give up my twitter account as well as all my other "public" accounts. Just a matter of time before anyone can be "served" via a networking account. Next headline will be "Dad served by ex-wife for divorce - via Twitter"

Scary!

[redhead61]

I just dont understand how it could be legal to serve anyone over a computer. It must touch their hands physically I thought.

[justsaynosarahp]

yeah, and how can it be proved that the individual is absolutely the only person who could access the account?
lots of users check the 'remember me' box on their email and other accounts. anyone with access to a communal computer in could get 'served'

[Startreklivz]

the caselaw developing is that clicking on an "open message" link is the equivalent of a physical service. You do know that messages can be encoded to automatically respond to the source server when the message is read or perused. Judges in some jurisdictions are accepting this as proof of service of a writ.