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posted by Fnord666 on Monday June 08 2020, @03:02AM   Printer-friendly
from the this-department-is-copyrighted dept.

Instagram just threw users of its embedding API under the bus:

Instagram does not provide users of its embedding API a copyright license to display embedded images on other websites, the company said in a Thursday email to Ars Technica. The announcement could come as an unwelcome surprise to users who believed that embedding images, rather than hosting them directly, provides insulation against copyright claims.

"While our terms allow us to grant a sub-license, we do not grant one for our embeds API," a Facebook company spokesperson told Ars in a Thursday email. "Our platform policies require third parties to have the necessary rights from applicable rights holders. This includes ensuring they have a license to share this content, if a license is required by law."

In plain English, before you embed someone's Instagram post on your website, you may need to ask the poster for a separate license to the images in the post. If you don't, you could be subject to a copyright lawsuit.

Professional photographers are likely to cheer the decision, since it will strengthen their hand in negotiations with publishers. But it could also significantly change the culture of the Web. Until now, people have generally felt free to embed Instagram posts on their own sites without worrying about copyright concerns. That might be about to change.


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  • (Score: 2) by fishybell on Monday June 08 2020, @04:28AM (3 children)

    by fishybell (3156) on Monday June 08 2020, @04:28AM (#1004729)

    It's not like Instagram or Facebook owns the copyright to the image either. They don't have the power to give what they don't themselves have.

    They have an explicit license from the copyright owner to use the image on their page (to use in a whole variety of ways) via the EULA the user clicked through. Transfering their own license to any number of unknown 3rd parties would likely run afoul of their EULA. Of course, it is their EULA, and they can change it if they want.

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  • (Score: 2) by Arik on Monday June 08 2020, @04:56AM

    by Arik (4543) on Monday June 08 2020, @04:56AM (#1004731) Journal
    No, their terms explicitly allow them to grant sub-licenses. Therefore the assumption previously has been that one way or another it's fine - if there were to be a license needed, it would be at least implicitly provided by IG, who have the power to do so.

    For them to explicitly state they won't do so would appear to be a deliberate shot across the bow to... I have no idea who. People who embed IG.
    --
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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 08 2020, @05:04AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 08 2020, @05:04AM (#1004732)

    Except they do, they always give themselves the power to sub-license in the license terms. You have to, otherwise you literally cannot show it to anyone else or operate your website. And that is the real problem. By not extending their copyright license to embedders, they could easily find themselves on the hook for contributory and (arguably) vicarious infringement under the server test, which is the most commonly used theory of liability used in cases like this.

  • (Score: 4, Insightful) by TheRaven on Monday June 08 2020, @08:59AM

    by TheRaven (270) on Monday June 08 2020, @08:59AM (#1004770) Journal

    Spot the person who hasn't read the Facebook T&Cs. By agreeing to them, you agree to grant Facebook a non-revokable, non-exclusive, commercial, sublicensable, to any material you upload. You also agree to indemnify Facebook in cases where you do not own the rights, so if someone sues Facebook because of a copyright image that you upload, you are liable for their legal fees.

    Apparently, some people are willing to agree to that.

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