Morgan Stanley complained to X about posts on the social media site using the bank's charts and research, leading to at least two accounts getting temporarily locked.
The bank has filed Digital Millennium Copyright Act complaints citing at least 16 posts that offered screenshots from the bank's research, according to a document shared with Bloomberg News by Ryan Detrick, chief market strategist at Carson Group Holdings LLC, and Nicholas Brown, a correspondent at Stock Trader Network, whose accounts were locked on Wednesday.
Detrick said in an interview with Bloomberg that the post cited by X included a chart from a research report written by Mike Wilson, Morgan Stanley's chief US equity strategist and chief investment officer. Like other bank research, many Morgan Stanley reports are sent to clients and not circulated publicly.
Detrick, who has 222,400 followers on X, said he was puzzled because Morgan Stanley didn't reach out to him directly about the post, which had been online since April and cited Wilson and the bank. Brown also published his post in April and gave credit to the bank.
“If they had just reached out, I would've taken it down,” said Detrick, who has posted research and ideas from banks and other sources for years, and has not faced a similar situation in the past.
The emails that Detrick and Brown received from X included the original request from Morgan Stanley, which claimed that the “copyrighted work is, in full or part (reports, graphs & charts), a proprietary Morgan Stanley Research Report.”
Detrick said he sent a message on Thursday morning to an address included in the complaint notice to get a retraction, and he received an email from X on Friday that he was granted the DMCA takedown retraction. As a result, the chart, which had been removed for copyright reasons, is now visible in the April post.
The emails both included links to 16 other posts from different X users, most of which have been taken down or edited to remove the bank's content. Many of the posts directly attributed the media to Morgan Stanley.
A spokesperson for Morgan Stanley declined to comment. X, which is a part of SpaceX, didn't respond to a request for comment.
The buzzing world of financial social media, or Fintwit, is filled with finance enthusiasts who post charts and research they see online, often leading to lively discussions on the market news of the day. Detrick said Morgan Stanley's actions show that they don't understand this is “just how the industry works.”
“I thought all publicity was good publicity,” he added. Detrick's post from Wednesday about the complaint has more than 147,000 views.
Detrick discovered the problem when he opened X on Wednesday and found a message that said his account had been locked. Thinking it was a hack, he tried on his laptop, which displayed the same message directing him to review X's copyright policy. After doing so, he was back into his account within five minutes, he said.
He then received an email from X Legal Support, which said the chart in the April post had been taken down because of a DMCA takedown notice. The email said he could seek a retraction from the person who filed the complaint, listed in the email as Denise McCool, the global chief data, AI and risk officer for research at Morgan Stanley, according to her LinkedIn. The email associated with the complaint is brandprotection@mm-enforcements.com. Brown received a similar email.
Detrick said he was concerned about having his X account taken down permanently. X's copyright policy doesn't specify the exact behavior that would lead to an account suspension.
“If multiple copyright complaints are received about an account, or other evidence suggests a pattern of repeat infringement, X may suspend that account in accordance with our Repeat Infringer Policy,” the policy says.
(This story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
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