Instagram Is Being Sued by Photojournalists for Violating Copyright Protections
Photojournalists Alexis Hunley and Matthew Scott Brauer have submitted a class-action lawsuit against Instagram in a California federal court, accusing the social media platform of violating their copyrights. More specifically, Instagram is targeted for letting an unlimited number of users reshare/repost the works of the photojournalists through its embedding tool without obliging them to obtain a license. As these works are protected by copyrights, allowing other users to profit from the reposts without involving the creators at any level is a clear violation.
News sites or other platforms typically use the embed tool on Instagram to get a post from the social media app and publish it on their platform. If there are ads or other ways to monetize these pieces of content, then the websites generate revenue partly thanks to the work embedded on the Instagram posts. Moreover, Instagram benefits from this by getting bounce-backs from these platforms. However, the creators are left outside this without any control over where their work may end up.
Alexis Hunley said she realized the scale and impact of this when she saw one of the photos she took during the 2020 George Floyd protests on BuzzFeed. This website ranks in the top 5k globally, so it enjoys massive traffic and generates impressive revenue. Yet, the platform didn’t have to ask permission or acquire a license from the creator, exploiting the image as if it was unprotected.
