In the modern world, greater notoriety in any arena may easily lead to greater risks of copyright liability via social media. Last week, on May 30, 2018, a copyright suit was filed against USA Volleyball and a member of their Team USA for what would seem to many to be average behavior on social media.
The complaint alleges that in November of 2015 team member, Lloy Ball, posted a photo of a single sheet of text on Twitter, which was then "retweeted" by USA Volleyball. The majority of the text, the complaint states, was taken from the plaintiff, Keith Bell's book Winning Isn't Normal. Interestingly, a quick Google image search of the book's title, as of the week following the filing of this suit, brought up at least 3 separate university sponsored sports twitter feeds with nearly identical posts. While it is unclear to a viewer whether or not licenses were obtained for such posts, the average sports oriented social media user would likely recognize the post from previous circulation on social media and, without an understanding of copyright, may be lulled into a sense of security in posting such a commonly viewed image without permission. In fact, Ball and USA Volleyball are not the first organization to be sued by this author for "retweeting" text from this book.
As a response has yet to be filed, it remains to be seen whether the limited 1 page posting will qualify for the protection of fair use in the copyright suit. Regardless, as individuals gain greater visibility, it is highly beneficial for them, and even more--the organizations behind them--to be more aware of the increased possibility of copyright liability and the necessity to educate members of their organization on the basics of copyright.