Two Photographers Alleged Instagram Embeds Facilitated Copyright Infringement. A Federal Judge Disagreed.

Instagram has prevailed in a lawsuit filed by two photographers in May 2021, alleging that the ability to embed photos elsewhere across the web facilitated copyright infringement.

A California federal judge dismissed the suit, which was filed by Alexis Hunley and Matthew Scott Brauer on behalf of any Instagrammers whose content had been embedded since July 2013, per The Hollywood Reporter.

Instagram filed a motion to dismiss the suit last July, which was granted by U.S. District Judge Charles Breyer the following September, though Breyer gave the plaintiffs a chance to amend their complaint. They did so in October and Instagram filed another motion to dismiss in November.

Instagram argued that it hosts and transmits the content when it appears as an embed on third-party sites, per the Reporter

, and that its Terms Of Use grant the platform “a nonexclusive license to publicly reproduce and display the content the user uploads and posts to their account.”

Last week, Breyer agreed with Instagram once again, and ruled that the plaintiffs could not refile an amended complaint.

Nevertheless, in late December, Instagram rolled out the ability for users to disallow embeds on their posts. That option, which arrived with a new feature enabling users to embed miniature versions of their profiles across the web, is located in ‘Settings’, ‘Account, ‘Embeds’ – where a toggle switch can now be switched to off.