- Henry Park
Did Instagram grant a sublicense to your public photos?

On April 15th, I blogged about the Sinclair v. Mashable case, where the Court granted a motion to dismiss holding that plaintiff had authorized Instagram to grant API users a sublicense to embed plaintiff's public photos, and that Instagram had granted a sublicense to Mashable to use plaintiff's public photo.
On June 8th, I blogged about the McGucken v. Newsweek case, where the Court denied a motion to dismiss based on the Mashable defense -- that Instagram had granted a sublicense -- finding there was no evidence of a sublicense.
On June 24th, the Mashable Court granted plaintiff's motion for reconsideration reversing Mashable's win (see Order, copy on Mega.nz). The Court held plaintiff had authorized Instagram to grant API users a sublicense to embed plaintiff's public photos. But, the Court found that the pleadings contained insufficient evidence that Instagram actually had granted Mashable a sublicense.
Photo by Freestocks.org from Stocksnap