Who Owns the Company Social Media Accounts?

    Regardless of the type business you are engaged in, as an employer specific action should be taken to protect your valuable assets.  Social media accounts (Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc.) are among those assets.  A company’s social media accounts are becoming viewed as more important and valuable in the case of company acquisitions and mergers, stock valuation and due diligence for financial transactions.  The purchaser, investor, etc. is going to want to know who owns the social media accounts and see written proof if the company claims this ownership.  The question is typically whether the employee who creates the account and is the primary user is the owner or whether the employer owns the account.

There has been recent litigation over the matter of ownership of social media accounts and no doubt there will be more.  Examples are Maremount v. Susan Fredman Design Group (employee starts marketing blog for company – employee on sick leave – employer assumes employee’s social media identity and continues blog – employee sues); Phonedog v. Kravitz (former employee refuses to surrender twitter account to employer); TEKsystems v. Horizontal Integration (employer-employee dispute over ownership of LinkedIn account).

And the moral is . . . clarify ownership of social media accounts in employment agreements and company policy manuals.  While most employers today understand the importance of intellectual property, these and similar clauses in employment agreements need to specifically address ownership of social media accounts.

Comments

[kabir38k]

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[non recourse factoring]

A business's social networking records are becoming considered as more important and attractive the case of company products and mergers, inventory assessment and due persistence for financial dealings.

[Tampa Personal Injury Lawyer]

In any employment agreement, it is vital to clearly specify certain issues, one of which is the ownership of the social media accounts. The issue here is whether the employee who created the account and is the immediate user or the company who pays the employee to do the blogging owns the social media account. To play on the safe side a proper evaluation of the case should first be evaluated. If the act of the company is temporary, then the employee can authorize the company to represent her. has the ownership of the question is typically whether the employee who creates the account and is the primary user is the owner or whether the employer owns the account