Fix company, which belongs to Delta Galil, shared a photo of a customer on Instagram, who even tagged the company.
The client did not like the idea, and sued the company for copyright infringement, invasion of privacy and making a fortune rather than a lawsuit.
The scope of the lawsuit was NIS 250,000.
However, the Magistrates' Court dismissed the claim.
The plaintiff purchased a swimsuit at the defendant's store in the Dizengoff Tel Aviv branch, and was photographed with it.
In June 2016, the plaintiff posted two photos on her public Instagram page - one of the brand's products and the other of the plaintiff herself wearing these products.
Plaintiff stated that she is not one of Defendant's friends on her personal Instagram account.
Plaintiff claimed that the photographs she uploaded to her Instagram account were copyrighted photographs as a work of art, and that Defendant used Plaintiff's photographs without her consent.
It was further alleged that the defendant published on various sites a copy of the plaintiff's photographs in a bathing suit, with the clear knowledge that this was done without the plaintiff's permission.
However, the court ruled that tagging an Instagram page, and certainly tagging in connection with content related to the tagged page, constitutes permission for the tagged page to re-share.
Therefore, the tagging party should be seen as having agreed, explicitly or not, to re-sharing.
The court ruled that the plaintiff had been shown to have tagged the fix company page regarding the two photos.
Once it has been proven that according to customary practice, tagging an Instagram page, and certainly tagging in connection with content related to the tagged fixed products page, constitutes approval for the tagged page to re-share - the plaintiff must be seen as having agreed, explicitly or implicitly, to re-share.
To the question of whether sharing on Instagram at all exposes us to such a lawsuit, says Adv. Gal Lifshitz, a partner in the Barnea Jafa Landa firm, because "it is, on the face of it, making the work available to the public.
The question is whether tagging another person constitutes giving that person permission to share the tagged photos.
"Sharing a picture of others on a social network is a common thing we do without even thinking about it, but we must be aware that sharing a work (image, text, etc.) has meanings. When we share pictures of others do we infringe their copyright? The court ruled that when an Instagram user, whose account is public, tags another page, it is in fact his approval and consent that the tagged page will be re-shared to the tagged image.
"In this situation the sharing itself does not constitute an infringement of copyright. But that is not all. In the world of copyright, even if we have been granted a license to do any action in the work, we must give credit to the creator of the work."
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