Photographers' new Instagram class action wants to upend online publishing

Online publishers that rely on Instagram posts for digital content should be paying close attention to a class action complaint filed last week in federal court in San Francisco.The suit is by photographers who post copyrighted images on their Instagram pages. They contend that since 2013, Instagram and its parent, Facebook, have enabled the infringement of their copyrights by encouraging online publishers such as Buzzfeed, HuffPost, Mashable and People to embed Instagram posts in their articles.Instagram’s embedding tool, according to the complaint, allowed these online publishers to display copyrighted images without obtaining photographers’ permission or paying a licensing fee. The prospective class, which is represented by the Duncan Firm, Hoben Law, Cera and The Law Offices of Todd M. Friedman and could include “many thousands” of photographers, claims that Instagram induced online publishers to embed links to Instagram posts in order to drive traffic – and ensuing ad revenues – to the site.Facebook did not immediately respond to a query about the suit. Nor did spokespeople for Mashable or Meredith Corp, which owns People. A spokesman for Buzzfeed, which also owns HuffPost, declined to comment. Plaintiffs lawyer James Bartolomei of the Duncan Firm declined to provide a statement on the…
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