Intellectual Property Ownership in 2012
I remember helping my father install his law firm’s first IBM PC in 1985. He was ecstatic. He felt that the kind of personal technology represented by the computer would enable solo practitioners like him to match the production of firms many times their size.
The rise of the individual, giving power to the lone voice, seems to be the common thread running through our technological and social advances. The internet, the proliferation of blogs and consumer review sites, and the advent of social media have elevated individual branding to an art form.
Today, companies are struggling to catch the social media train many are convinced has already left the station. Many business owners feel that they have somehow failed unless they have thousands of Facebook “likes,” Twitter followers, and LinkedIn connections. So they encourage their workforce to blog, tweet, post, and connect. After all, many of the social media sites are designed around the individual, rather than the company. They are created with an eye toward building the personal, rather than corporate brand.
But how does that square with a shifting workforce?
Kevin O’Keefe recently wrote a blog post for attorneys entitled “Who owns the Twitter followers at your law firm?” In his posting, he recounted the now-pending case of a new your company, Phonedog.com which filed suit against a former employee seeking ownership of his Twitter account and its 17,000 plus followers. The Complaint alleges that the employee, Noah Kravitz, opened the account while employed by Phonedog under the name Phonedog_Noah. When he left, he took his account with him.
While this case has yet to wind its way through the courts, the question it raises is absolutely crucial to the determination of social media strategy as well as to the formation of employee-employer relations. Many employment contracts have provisions stating that anything the employee creates while employed – all intellectual property in other words – belongs to the employer. Few contracts, however, address social media.
As you review your employment agreements and social media strategy for 2012, remember that they are not separate entities. They overlap. As technology advances, so does the power of the individual to help or hurt your company’s brand. Just as many companies place a priority on keeping employees’ cell phone numbers after they leave so that they can catch calls from company accounts, business owners should also keep social media followings in mind when planning beyond the tenure of any given employee.
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