Only a few days ago, around 30 ‘meme’ accounts were permanently removed from Instagram. Some with tens of thousands of followers were just shut down, with little to no explanation from Instagram themselves… other than stating that they were in violation of their rules.

There has been speculation as to what these violations could have been, but the one that stood out for us was the accusation of 'misuse of content'.

This is a major problem in the meme-making world, that arguably people are either unaware of or don’t take seriously. Memes are often made out of other people’s content, taken from the internet, at the ease of a screenshot. So accounts using other people’s content, that rakes in thousands of followers, and perhaps even make money from their accounts, are understandably seen as a threat to content rights - I guess this is the downside of being able to monetize a temperamental platform.

We’re glad that it appears that Instagram (Facebook) is finally taking this seriously, and taking actions to help content rights for artists.

However, with meme culture not going anywhere soon, this is just a drop in the ocean when it comes to cracking down on violations.

Despite this! We’re optimistic about the future, and we hope this is the first step of many in the right direction. The worlds a little safer place today for content creators like our Lobsters!

Stay up to date with our Blog - to find out more about our collaboration with KODAKOne and the opportunity we’ll be giving our community to access post-licensing.