Twitter Lawers Up

Twitter has reportedly ramped up its legal team by hiring away a key Google lawyer to become its general counsel. The site has nabbed Alexander Macgillivray, the former Senior Product and Intellectual Property Counsel at Google, reports the NYTimes.

Macgillivray’s resume is extensive: he steered the Google Books settlement with publishers, which if approved by a federal judge could pave the way for Google to scan and index millions of books. He also handled Google’s conflict with the Associated Press and defended YouTube against Viacom’s lawsuit.
Few Legal Issues

And yet Twitter’s legal issues have not been extensive: with the exception of recently-dropped La Russa case, in which the baseball manager was angered by someone impersonating him on the site, Twitter hasn’t found itself in legal trouble. That issue has already been tackled with Verified Accounts, and while a few disputes could still occur over Twitter name-squatting (as big brands hop onto the site and find their trademarks taken), it’s hard to see a major legal challenge on the horizon.

By allowing third parties like Twitpic to host images for the site, meanwhile, Twitter avoids most of the issues associated with pornography, copyright infringement and censorship. Compared to YouTube and Google, it would seem that Twitter is a much less obvious legal target.
[Via Mashable | Photos via Twitter and Harvard]