22 August, 2015
Lee Kien Meng v Cintamani Frank [2015] SGHC 109 (Singapore, High Court, 22 April 2015)
This case dealt with the interesting question of whether a person who set up a Facebook account to create pages can own those pages, separate from the content posted onto those pages.
Facts
The person in this case who had set up the Facebook account and pages that the parties were in dispute over was the appellant. He was the sole shareholder and director of Senatus Pte Ltd (“Senatus”), a private company in the business of, among other things, online advertising.
The respondent ran and organised two fashion events in Singapore, namely, Men’s Fashion Week (“MFW”) and Women’s Fashion Week (“WFW”). The respondent ran and organised these events through one of his companies, Fide Multimedia Pte Ltd (“Fide”).
Fide engaged Senatus to promote MFW and WFW online through social media. The appellant was appointed as “Sponsorship Director” of MFW 2011 and “Festival Director” of WFW 2011. As part of the engagement, the appellant set up a Facebook account and pages for MFW 2011 and WFW 2011 (“Facebook Pages”). He was the first administrator of the Facebook Pages. He appointed the respondent as another administrator, along with other staff members of Fide. Administrators had, among other things, the right to remove administrative rights of other administrators.
In March 2012, as a result of a falling out between the parties, the respondent removed the appellant and all other administrators of the Facebook Pages as administrators. The appellant sought restoration of his status as administrator. However, the parties were unable to reach agreement on this. As a result, the appellant commenced legal proceedings against the respondent in respect of the Facebook Pages. He sought, among other things, a declaration from the Singapore High Court that he was the owner/sole administrator of the Facebook Pages and that the respondent was to reinstate the Facebook Pages and relinquish all rights and control of the same to the appellant.
The High Court held that the appellant had no right to the Facebook Pages.
The appellant argued that he was the owner of the Facebook Pages as they came into existence because of him. By this, he did not mean that he owned the copyright in the individual content loaded on to the Facebook Pages such as the comments made on the Facebook Pages or the photographs that were uploaded to the Facebook Pages. Nor did he mean that he owned the copyright in the Facebook website, its codes, and back-end engines. Instead, he was claiming to have a right to the bare medium of the Facebook Pages separate from either of these things.
The Court considered but did not decide the question of whether property could exist in the Facebook Pages. It opined that this was a difficult conceptual question. Instead, it proceeded on the parties’ agreed assumption that they could constitute property and considered whether the appellant could be regarded as having a right to the Facebook Pages. In respect of this narrower question, it held that he could not.
The Court referred to the Facebook Terms and Statement, which a Facebook user had to agree to before creating an account on Facebook. It noted that these clearly provided that Facebook had an unfettered right to remove pages created on Facebook and that its consent was required before any account or pages could be transferred to another person. Further, the Court noted that the Facebook Statement made it clear that the content of the page was owned by the user, but did not state that the entire page was owned by the user. Accordingly, the Court found that the appellant did not own the Facebook Pages.
Finally, the Court also found that, on the facts, there was no agreement to hand over control of the Facebook Pages. Accordingly, there was no basis for the relief sought by the appellant. He had neither a proprietary interest in the Facebook Pages, nor did he have a legally enforceable agreement with the respondent for the latter to hand over control of the Facebook Pages to him.
For further information, please contact:
Chung Nian Lam, Partner, WongPartnership
chungnian.lam@wongpartnership.com
