Court Sets New Precedent on Who Owns Facebook ‘Likes’

A federal court in Florida last month issued a precedent-setting ruling on who owns social media assets, such as “likes” on Facebook fan pages.

The ruling came in response to a lawsuit filed by Stacy Mattocks, who launched a Facebook fan page for the TV show, “The Game,” in 2008, later amassing more than two-million “likes.”

After the show was cancelled in 2009, the TV network BET chose to revive the drama and offered Mattocks $15,000 to take ownership of the fan page. In response, Mattocks demanded $1.2 million, according to the lawsuit.

Mattocks and BET had reached a deal giving the network administrative access to the Facebook page on the condition of hiring Mattocks as a part-time employee to manage the page. Both parties agreed not to lock the other out. However, Mattocks later became dissatisfied with the arrangement and revoked BET’s ability to manage the page.

In response, BET created its own fan page and asked Facebook to shut down Mattocks’s page because it contained copyrighted material. BET also asked Facebook to transfer “likes” from the old page to their new fan page. Facebook complied with the request, and Mattocks sued.

An economist hired by Mattocks calculated the value of the page’s now six-million likes at $1.39 per fan for a total of $8.7 million. Conversely, another economist retained by BET countered that Facebook “likes” are not assets and their market value is minimal.

In the end, the court ruled against Mattocks, contending she failed to establish ownership of the “likes” in question.

"Based on the record, Mattocks cannot establish that she owns a property interest in the 'likes' on the FB Page," said US District Judge James Cohn in his decision last month. "'Liking' a Facebook Page simply means that the user is expressing his or her enjoyment or approval of the content. At any time, moreover, the user is free to revoke the 'like' by clicking an 'unlike' button. So if anyone can be deemed to own the 'likes' on a Page, it is the individual users responsible for them.”

Writing in Bloomberg Businessweek, Joshua Brustein pointed to another legal dispute that erupted between an employer and employee over social media connections. In 2011, the company PhoneDog sued former employee Noah Kravitz for changing the Twitter handle @PhoneDog_Noah to @noahkravitz and keeping the followers, instead of relinquishing the Twitter account to the company. PhoneDog valued each of the Twitter user’s 17,000 followers at $2.50 per month, arguing that Kravitz owed the company $340,000. Because the two parties settled in that case, no ruling was issued and no precedent was established.

Brustein maintains that while the ownership of “likes” can be tough to establish, the value of a “like” is less cloudy. He points to companies, such as WeSellLikes.com, that charge $500 to $1,000 in exchange for 10,000 Facebook “likes.” The U.S. State Department also spent over $630,000 to boost its Facebook “likes,” according to the Washington Post.

While social media assets undoubtedly hold value in a 21^st-century economy driven by “Generation Like,” establishing ownership remains a dubious proposition, one the courts will have to keep weighing in on as more social media legal battles arise.