3 ms·

> You are explicitly allowing them to reshare your image via the platform I don't know if I fully concede that, but it's almost immaterial, because the company

> You are explicitly allowing them to reshare your image via the platform I don't know if I fully concede that, but it's almost immaterial, because the company ripped it off the platform and rehosted it on their own site. > the article mentions they did ask for permission before doing that No. "Crocs pulled the photo and posted it to their website [...] It was only much later that Crocs sought explicit permission from Ms. Way, which she declined." From the NYT source article: "The company had not asked Ms. Way for permission, and she was not aware that Crocs had used the photo until a reporter contacted her on Instagram." You're appealing to what is "reasonable" to expect or not expect someone to do with your content, but it doesn't really matter -- reproducing someone else's copyrightable work without their express permission is illegal, and hashtags aren't express enough. (In the US at least, and again I'm not a lawyer.)

jrandm 11y ago
Instagram's terms of use and privacy policy are less explicit about rights to redistribute your content (than Twitter), but there are several lines like "Once you have shared User Content or made it public, that User Content may be re-shared by others." Most of their policies are about absolving them of any responsibility of what happens with that re-sharing. They initially used her (public, tagged) photo in a photo gallery on the site, and requested permission for standard commercial use (print ads, signage, paid placements, etc). Possibly the reporter's questioning led them to begin to comment-request permission for any photo they pull, but I can appreciate a media team drawing a distinction between the types of usage. The hashtag is only relevant in that it's reasonable you are drawing interested parties to see your photo, and the nature of a publishing platform means it's practical to expect that photo to be reused. I don't believe anyone could successfully argue a hashtag by itself is explicit permission, but the combination of publication, tagging, and no effort to control usage would seem to be some kind of implicit permission. Practically, as the site policy stresses, once the image is public it's outside of your control. (and without explicit denial, this incident's usage seems implicitly allowed)

jrandm 11y ago

Instagram's terms of use and privacy policy are less explicit about rights to redistribute your content (than Twitter), but there are several lines like "Once you have shared User Content or made it public, that User Content may be re-shared by others." Most of their policies are about absolving them of any responsibility of what happens with that re-sharing. They initially used her (public, tagged) photo in a photo gallery on the site, and requested permission for standard commercial use (print ads, signage, paid placements, etc). Possibly the reporter's questioning led them to begin to comment-request permission for any photo they pull, but I can appreciate a media team drawing a distinction between the types of usage. The hashtag is only relevant in that it's reasonable you are drawing interested parties to see your photo, and the nature of a publishing platform means it's practical to expect that photo to be reused. I don't believe anyone could successfully argue a hashtag by itself is explicit permission, but the combination of publication, tagging, and no effort to control usage would seem to be some kind of implicit permission. Practically, as the site policy stresses, once the image is public it's outside of your control. (and without explicit denial, this incident's usage seems implicitly allowed)