Professional photographers and content creators on Instagram: your professional lives just got more difficult.
Did you know that when you post your photographs on Instagram, under Instagram’s Terms of Service, you “grant[ed] to Instagram a non-exclusive, fully paid and royalty-free, transferable, sub-licensable, worldwide license to the content that [he/she] post[s] on or through [Instagram]”? According to the District Court for the Southern District of New York, you are doing exactly that.
As the old saying goes, the devil is in the details: Instagram’s Terms of Use.
Read moreThis is how a simple, everyday experience of one man and his smart phone turns into big dollars. In short, a person (not a professional photographer), takes a picture of a criminal defendant. That picture is newsworthy. The picture is posted to Instragram. Cox Media uses the picture without first licensing it. The Plaintiff, who has now registered the photograph with the US Copyright Office, sues for infringement and wins the liability phase of the case on summary judgment. The Defendant asserts a fair use defense and loses.
This is the tale of Cruz x. Cox Media Grp., LLC, Docket No. 18-CV-1041 in the US District Court for the Eastern District of New York. A copy of the Court’s Memorandum and Order appears below.
Here are a streamlined version of the facts, as presented by the Court in its opinion granting the Plaintiff’s summary judgment motion:
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