![]() In response to my copyright report I got an email asking me to provide all the information I had submitted in the form again. Is Instagram discussing solutions to this growing issue internally? I have tried to get someone on the platform to talk to me about it, but as with everything else, they are not accessible or transparent. While they are building bots to detect and delete body parts or words, they are doing very little to help when artists are getting their work stolen. They are allowing this to happen repeatedly without prioritizing protecting the artists. Lina Scheynius, “Untitled” (2018) from the Flower series ![]() The guidelines state that you can’t upload things you don’t have the copyright to or a license for, but the guidelines are hard to find and are often not implemented. They often claim that they didn’t know it was illegal. Most of the brands do remove the photos when I ask them. Some artists send retroactive invoices to the brands for their usage, but these rarely get paid. The platform is built on viewer numbers, and the illegal appropriation of artists’ images is allowing brands to take advantage under the pretense that they are helping out. There is an idea that all exposure is good exposure, and that as long as I tag you, you should be grateful. Some younger ones are afraid to ask brands to take the work down. ![]() The majority of artists I am connected to on Instagram see this happening to their work too, especially if they have a larger following. That they didn’t was in fact exploitative and theft. In the beginning I would just ignore the problem, but as Instagram got more known as a place to sell things and brands needed to fill their feed with constant new content, I started to tell the brands to remove my photos and simultaneously started to become vocal in my community about copyright infringement and brands needing to ask image owners’ permission and pay money for artists’ work. I assume the theft happens a lot more than I know. ![]() Sometimes because the brands tag me and sometimes because someone else tags me to let me know. I catch this happening to one of my photos every week. It seems like the image can be used to sell almost anything: beauty products, nutritional supplements, mental health coaching, fashion, concept stores, and all sorts of products with a “feminine empowerment” label. My plum photo is constantly popping up in small-to-medium brand feeds. I had never made it to the end of a report before because I always felt like I should be doing something better with my time. From the moment of clicking the report button to finally sending the report it took me 18 minutes. Compared to reporting a nipple which you can do with a couple of clicks this was a lengthy procedure. I decided to jump through the hoops of reporting copyright infringement on the stolen plum photo last week. Lina Scheynius, “Untitled” (2013) from the Diary series I was excited to start my career, share my work online and be able to make books and exhibitions. People would ask me if I wasn’t afraid of my photos getting stolen, and I said no - that I liked them spreading to other blogs so that more people could enjoy them. This was before the Internet was known for money making and quick fame. I started on the photo sharing platform Flickr and built a community there. My work is personal and deals with vulnerability and the naked body. I am an artist working in photography and I have been sharing my work on Internet platforms since 2007.
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