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Pinterest prevails in photography copyright dispute

The photographer said his quarrel wasn't with Pinterest users who had pinned his works, but instead where his works were displayed on the Pinterest site.

(CN) — A federal judge granted summary judgment to Pinterest in a lawsuit by a photographer claiming the company infringed over 50 of his copyrighted works by displaying them too close to other advertisements.

The ruling comes after Harold Davis, an award-winning photographer and author from Princeton, New Jersey, sued the social media company in November 2019 claiming the company displayed 51 of his photographs without permission on its site.

In his suit, Davis claimed his challenge was not with Pinterest users who enjoyed his work, saying he “has no quarrel” with users who pinned his photos to their personal Pinterest boards. Instead, he took issue with Pinterest displaying his works to closely or in the same feed as other promotional posts. For example, he claimed his work “Kiss from a Rose” was displayed next to a promoted pin for another art print, an act he says that infringed his copyrights.

After dismissing a series of related infringement claims, U.S. District Judge Haywood Gilliam Jr. in the Northern District of California granted summary judgment in favor of Pinterest on the sole surviving infringement claim.

In a 28-page order, Gilliam found Pinterest is protected from the claims through the safe harbor provisions of the Digital Millennial Copyright Act. Perhaps most importantly, according to the judge, Davis has been unable to show how Pinterest or its content algorithms directly profited from his works by displaying them so close to promoted pins.

“Plaintiff’s evidence regarding Pinterest’s overall business model, however, does not establish that Pinterest obtained a financial benefit distinctly attributable to the infringement alleged here,” Gilliam wrote. “The advertisements may be shown in proximity to plaintiff’s works, but as already explained, the algorithms that Pinterest uses for its advertisements are not associated with those works.”

Gilliam found that even if Pinterest were making financial gains from Davis' works, legal precedent does not swing the case in the photographer’s favor. In previous cases argued before the Ninth Circuit where different plaintiffs sued websites that contained clips from copyrighted movies, the court focused on the fact that it was individual users of the sites that uploaded the content in the first place. The sites could incentivize users for uploading popular content, but the users remain ultimately responsible for the uploads.

The judge found the same reasoning applies here. Davis’ works were added to Pinterest by individual users, not Pinterest, and the fact that Pinterest uses algorithms designed to increase consumer access to content does not make it responsible for any infringement.

Davis attempted to argue Pinterest had direct control over the images on the site even if it didn’t put them there, but Gilliam found the photographer had never shown how the company’s advertisement practices violated his copyrights.

With the last of Davis’ claims decided in Pinterest's favor, the judge ordered the case closed.

Representatives for Davis and Pinterest did not respond to a request for comment by press time Wednesday afternoon.  

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Categories / Arts, Entertainment, Media, Technology

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