Star Wars Fans Lose It Over Disney Legal Terms For Star Wars Day Hashtag

On Monday, Disney+ revealed that Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker will debut on the streaming [...]

By Spencer Perry - April 29, 2020 11:35 am EDT

On Monday, Disney+ revealed that Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker will debut on the streaming service on Star Wars Day, May 4th, two months ahead of schedule. For the first time ever, the complete Skywalker saga will be available to stream all in one place. Disney+ went on to ask fans to "celebrated the Saga" by replying to their announcement tweet with their best Star Wars memories, teasing that the tweets may appear "somewhere special" during the service's Star Wars Day celebration. But then Disney+ posted a another tweet that introduced some legal language that has drawn scrutiny from among the Star Wars fan community.

By sharing your message with us using #MayThe4th, you agree to our use of the message and your account name in all media and our terms of use here: https://t.co/G0AyToufQ5
— Disney+ (@disneyplus) April 27, 2020

Disney+'s message was quickly lampooned, mocked, and called into question by fans, legal scholars, and basically everyone on Twitter. The company tried to clarify their language and meaning behind the initial tweet in a follow that read: "The above legal language applies ONLY to replies to this tweet using #MayThe4th and mentioning @DisneyPlus. These replies may appear in something special on May the 4th!" The damage was done by then though, and social media accounts are keeping the message in their sights.

It's worth noting that Disney is not making a legal claim to all tweets using the hashtag for Star Wars, but specifically any message sent to them that they intend to use in whatever video or special they're creating for May the 4th. Overall it was their way of making sure they had a release from anyone willingly participating

It's a good holiday

love to spontaneously celebrate my favorite holiday with all of my friends https://t.co/1Yhu37Ku5U
— Vince Mancini (@VinceMancini) April 27, 2020

Not sure that's how that works

My favorite Star Wars memory would have to be the time Disney tried to lay legal claim to every tweet on Twitter that used a particular hashtag. #MayThe4th pic.twitter.com/7fDB3LKUlw
— Itsukushimi 🍥 (@Itsukushimi777) April 27, 2020

The crawl

https://t.co/KpBCXtu5xu pic.twitter.com/yFJ7NXr6cG
— CoffeeBird ☕️🐦 #WFHCru (@Kithrak_) April 27, 2020

Actually you owe us money this time

lol nice try, bad lawyers.#MayThe4th

By sharing anything with me on Twitter, Disney agrees that they owe me (I'll be modest) ten million US dollars.
— Dale Innis 🌹 (@DaleInnis) April 27, 2020

Feel free to use this one

Thank you for yet another example of companies who don't understand how social media works. You, of course, can use this tweet all you want. #MayThe4th
— C.C. Chapman (He, Him, His) (@cc_chapman) April 27, 2020

Does this include birthdays

I was born on May 4th - does that mean you technically own my birthday? #MayThe4th
— The Millennial Musician (@themillennialmu) April 27, 2020

On-topic

The Empire Strikes Back!*

*With intrusive & abusive terms of service.
— David Rothschild (@DavMicRot) April 27, 2020

Fun is also Copyright Disney

nothing says fun like asking a person to be bound by a thirteen page legal document for tweeting about laser swordshttps://t.co/AgO5MdML20
— garanimus (@gleebix) April 27, 2020

Where is the lie

#MayThe4th remind everyone that Disney has effectively destroyed how copyright law should work so they can milk franchises for possibly hundreds of years while creating a scenario where small content creators have their livelihoods threatened for snippets of songs and movies https://t.co/Sk75lAjt0s
— Walt (@_watsu) April 27, 2020

The criticisms are valid

this is like everything wrong with disney media in one tweet

what used to be a celebration by fans, for fans, is reduced to a cold, clinical, terms of service agreement https://t.co/LBzNt6ZiZU
— ᴡɪᴛ ᴀɴᴅ ꜰᴏʟʟʏ // ㄒㄚ⁷ (@black_tym) April 27, 2020

They briefly considered it at one point!

Did Disney buy Twitter? You can own hashtags? https://t.co/2GerDnXWJr
— Laurie (@CndnSheepdog) April 27, 2020