On April 14, Eric Garder, writing for the Hollywood Reporter, published a story under the headline: Court Rules Photographer Gave Up Exclusive Licensing Rights by Posting on Instagram. There is nothing technically wrong with that headline—and Gardner did not, I believe, misrepresent any facts in his article. But when I saw photographer Doug Menuez share this story on Facebook the other day, I had the same gut reaction that I bet a lot of visual artists and copyright watchers had. Those words “gave up” made me think, Great, some judge has actually ruled that posting an image on a social media account extinguishes all copyright in the work. (Yes, that is how the nerd in my head always talks.)

I noticed that copyright attorney Leslie Burns, who represents many photographers, bemoaned on Twitter the fact that this story is already being described as one in which uploading to Instagram et al automatically terminates copyrights. That is certainly not what the judge ruled in Sinclair v. Ziff-Davis and Mashable earlier week. But there is still much to this story—a good news/bad news tale—that  should be of great concern to copyright owners.

The good news is that Judge Kimba M. Wood of the District Court for the Southern District of New York (SDNY) did not articulate any new opinions whatsoever with respect to copyright law. The bad news is that what happened to professional photographer Stephanie Sinclair is yet another reminder that the major tech platforms are predatory animals whose Terms of Service are toxic to creators. Here are the basics …

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