A recent post discussed a copyright case from the federal court in the Southern District of New York brought by a professional photographer who uploaded an image on her public Instagram page. The Court dismissed the photographer’s copyright claims, ruling that when an individual uploads a picture to his or her public Instagram page, he or she grants Instagram the right to grant sublicenses of the picture. The Court has now revised its decision and allowed the lawsuit to proceed, ruling that Instagram’s terms of service are insufficiently clear to warrant dismissal.

When an individual uploads a picture to his or her public Instagram page, he or she grants Instagram a license to display it and, importantly, the right for Instagram to grant sublicenses of the picture. By operation of Instagram’s terms and conditions, Instagram granted a third-party website a valid sublicense to embed a photo on its site through Instagram’s API and, thus, the website did not violate the photographer’s rights.