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

Lawrence W. Gallick and Aaron Rubin authored an article for The Licensing Journal that explored Second Circuit case, JLM Couture, Inc. v. Hayley Paige Gutman, and the court’s approach that accepts social media accounts as property.

The authors noted that this precedent from Gutman may enable other courts to streamline their analysis of these issues. They wrote, “While it is not necessarily easy to determine whether an account was owned by an employee or a company at creation, knowing that a court will ultimately rule on ownership of the account according to traditional principles of property law should enable both employees and companies to enter into employment contracts that make ownership of social media accounts more predictable.”

Read the full article.