Instagram Beats Two Photographers On Charges Of Copyright Violations

Instagram managed to beat two photographers who sued him for copyright infringement (photo: dock. Meta)

JAKARTA - Instagram managed to beat two photographers who sued him for copyright infringement, claimed to have let online news sites embed images without permission in an article.

This case began when online news site Time used a photo of a presidential candidate and former Secretary of State of the United States (US), Hillary Clinton, who was protected by copyright by Matthew Brauer in 2016.

Buzzfeed also did the same as embedding Alexis Hunley, showing the situation during the Black Lives Matter protests in 2020.

They stated that neither Buzzfeed nor Time asked for permission to display the work uploaded on their Instagram profile.

In 2021, Hunley and Brauer filed a class action lawsuit against Instagram in federal court.

Claiming that Meta's social media had abused their copyright by allowing online news sites to embed photos shared on their profiles.

The two accused Instagram of never asking a third party to get a license when embedding their copyrighted photos and videos.

According to a report compiled by Engadget and PetaPixel, Friday, July 21, a judge rejected the lawsuit on the grounds that both online news sites did not keep original images or even display a copy.

On the other hand, they only display what is already available via Instagram as an embedding. However, Hunley and Brauer appealed this decision.

Unfortunately, their efforts failed because a panel of three judges at the 9th US Circuit Court of Appeals revealed Instagram was not responsible for copyright infringement.

Because, when photos or videos are embedded, no copies are made of the underlying content. Gizmodo reported, the panel decision document digs directly into the nature of HTML.

The hypertext code doesn't really contain images but basically, the address where the photo is stored while allowing embedding to display files.

The browser follows the HTML instructions which are handled via a mere link. So, the results of this lawsuit confirmed that BuzzFeed and Time did not display a copy of the work of the two photographers.