I support Twitter Inc. with their decision to continue a legal battle with the James Dean Inc. over the Twitter handle @JamesDean.
According to the article from hollywoodreporter.com, the Dean licensing empire wants Twitter to shut down the handle under Twitter’s impersonation policy. In response the anonymous owner of the account can argue that it falls under the parody, commentary and fan account policy.
An anonymous person uses the handle @JamesDean to talk about James Dean and how cool he is, not to pretend to be James Dean. James Dean is an American icon who is known as a Hollywood rebel or bad boy. He died in 1955 at age 24. James Dean never saw any of the technology that we are accustomed to using today, and I don’t think that a Twitter account that glorifies him is damaging to his reputation. In 2014 he is a historical figure to us.
In our class we learn to think of Twitter as a tool to spread news coverage, but before I got involved in Journalism Twitter was for fun. Many teenagers follow Twitter accounts like @CollegeHumor, @guycodes, @femalestruggles just to laugh at gifs and Tumblr edits. There are hysterical twitter accounts dedicated to making up gangster quotes that our founding fathers never could have said.
My point is that if this anonymous user writes “Not associated with James Dean, Inc” in the biography, he is obviously not impersonating James Dean. His twitter has quotes from James Dean in quotations, what James Dean would do in hypothetical situations, and pictures of James Dean throughout his life.
The internet has the most room for expression and fan blogs shouldn’t be in danger because corporations of deceased peoples get involved. If James Dean could understand internet fandom, I don’t think he or anyone else deceased, would have a problem with someone keeping his name and image alive through the internet today.
See links for reference.
http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/thr-esq/twitter-legal-war-jamesdean-678435
