Owned: Second Circuit Holds That Traditional Principles of Property Law Apply to Social Media Accounts

Here at Socially Aware, we have been discussing issues around ownership of social media accounts since the beginning of social media. Just last July, we reported on how a bankruptcy court in Florida forced the founder and former CEO of Bang Energy to delete disparaging comments from his Instagram account and ultimately ruled that the company owned the Instagram, TikTok, and X (formerly Twitter) accounts at issue. Prior to the Bang case, a number of other cases addressed these issues, with varying results, which is unsurprising given the varying facts around creation and use of social media accounts by businesses and business professionals. See some of our other coverage of social media ownership litigation.

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