Haynes and Boone, LLP Partner Jeffrey Becker talked with Forbes about Instagram’s recent move to shut down meme accounts for allegedly infringing the copyright of cartoonists and original content creators.
Here is an excerpt:
As for Instagram’s responsibility to secure owners’ rights to original content on their platform, they meet it with the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, which, according to Jeff Becker, a partner at Haynes and Boone, LLP, is all they need to do.
“You have to provide a mechanism for owners to report violations, so it puts the responsibility on the owners,” Becker told me. “That’s what all of them [social media companies] do and legally they don’t need to do much more.”
When asked if Instagram should implement a direct sharing capability like Twitter and Facebook have with retweeting and sharing, respectively, Becker told me, “It would definitely help. That way you’re not copying it anymore. You’re providing a link. But do they have to? I don’t think they have an obligation, legally.”
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