Instagram Will Require You To Get Permission Before Embedding Posts On Your Website

Copyright laws can sometimes be a bit confusing, especially with the digital medium that we work with these days. For some, the idea is that if you’re going to publicly share things on social media like Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram, technically you should also expect it to be reused or reposted.

However, the other side of the coin claims that since it is still technically your work, you should be able to control who uses it and where it is used. Unfortunately for publications or users that rely heavily on embedding Instagram posts on their websites, it looks like things are about to get messy because Instagram has since claimed that they do not offer a sub-license to embedded posts.

In an email sent to Ars Technica, “While our terms allow us to grant a sub-license, we do not grant one for our embeds API. 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.”

To put it simply, this means that moving forwards if you wish to embed an Instagram post on your website, you will need to obtain permission from the original poster otherwise you could find yourself on the end of a copyright lawsuit.

This comes as Newsweek was sued by photographer Elliot McGucken where they embedded a photo of his in their post, but were later sued for copyright infringement. The publication claims that Instagram’s sublicense extends to embedding technology, which the statement above now seems to refute.

Tyler Lee
Categories: General
Tags: Instagram, Legal