If you’re a budding photographer on Instagram, you might be a little frustrated if you find some of your work shared elsewhere. Something which could easily be done provided the Instagram post was embedded in the other articles page. Apparently as a result of some legal battles over the copyright of images, Instagram is changing its policies so that people will “require third parties to have the necessary rights from applicable rights holders”.
Ars Technica first reported on this change, including talking to the company that revealed they are actively working on ways to control the embedding of images on other articles better and perhaps find a way of ensuring that the actual owners of the images themselves have confirmed that their images can be used in a post. Right now though, the only way that it can be done is by making a photo private.
The copyright page has been updated and declares that users retain “the right to grant permission to use your copyrighted work, as well as the right to prevent other people from using your copyrighted work without permission,” with no mention of exceptions for embedded content. The site also forbids embedding content in a way that “violates any rights of any person,” including “intellectual property rights.”
Instagram will probably provide more detail on how they will enforce these new rules over time, though for now, nothing will stop other sites from embedding Instagram posts. It will be interesting to see how this alters the landscape of sharing posts, particular for media sites like ours, although I do agree that in the end making sure that all Instagram users should reserve the right to control exactly how and where their images are displayed on the internet.
Last Updated: June 8, 2020
