How Pinterest’s win over a photographer at the Fed Circ tested the DMCA

26-09-2023

Sarah Speight

How Pinterest’s win over a photographer at the Fed Circ tested the DMCA

Ink drop / Shutterstock

A failed argument on the position of the platform’s adverts on users' feeds provides an important perspective for creators and content platforms alike, finds Sarah Speight.

In early September, the US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit affirmed a lower court’s decision that social media site Pinterest had not infringed the copyright of a professional photographer’s works. 

But what started as a straightforward infringement dispute became much more than that, bringing the role of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) and commercial online platforms into sharp focus.

Photographer, digital artist and author Harold Davis—whose famous floral images were used on US postage stamps in 2022—first sued Pinterest in November 2019.


copyright, Digital Millennium Copyright Act, DMCA, safe harbour, Pinterest, US, tech, photography, Harold Davis

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