Logan v. Meta Platforms, Inc.

Background

Don Ramey Logan, a California resident and Facebook user, brought a proposed class action against Meta Platforms, Inc. He alleged that he created and owned photographs depicting scenic or landmark coastal areas. His claims concerned two types of embedding: third-party websites embedding photographs from Facebook, and Meta embedding photographs from other websites onto Facebook.

Logan alleged that third parties used Facebook’s embedding tool to display his photographs on external websites. He claimed Meta was secondarily liable for those parties’ alleged copyright infringement. He also alleged that Meta directly infringed his copyrights by embedding photographs from Wikimedia Commons, saving them on Facebook’s servers, and displaying them. Finally, he asserted a false-advertising claim under the Lanham Act and claims under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, alleging that Meta removed information identifying him and the photographs’ licensing terms and displayed a copyright tag identifying Meta.

Legal Standard

Meta moved to dismiss under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6), which permits dismissal when a complaint does not state a legally valid claim supported by enough facts. The court also considered whether Logan should receive permission to amend. It explained that leave to amend should generally be granted unless amendment would be futile.

Secondary Copyright Liability

Logan asserted inducement, contributory, and vicarious copyright-infringement claims based on third parties’ use of Facebook’s embedding tool. To plead these secondary-liability claims, he first had to allege direct copyright infringement by a third party.

Applying the Ninth Circuit’s “server test,” the court explained that embedding generally does not establish direct infringement when the third party does not store the image on its own server or another tangible medium. Logan alleged only that third parties “can” save embedded photographs on their servers; he did not allege that any specific third party actually did so. His allegations that Meta saved photographs from Wikimedia concerned his direct-infringement theory, not the required third-party infringement for secondary liability. The court therefore dismissed the inducement, contributory, and vicarious-infringement claims, with leave to amend.

Direct Copyright Infringement

The court rejected Meta’s argument that Logan had failed to allege that Meta saved his photographs on its servers. Construing the complaint in Logan’s favor, the court found that the complaint adequately alleged that Meta downloaded photographs from Wikimedia and stored them on Facebook’s servers, satisfying the server-test issue relevant to the pleaded theory.

The direct-infringement claim nevertheless failed because the complaint did not allege that the specific photographs at issue had been registered with the U.S. Copyright Office. The complaint stated only that Logan had registered “certain embedded photos,” which the court found too vague. The court dismissed the direct copyright-infringement claim, with leave to amend.

Lanham Act False Advertising

Logan alleged that Meta misrepresented the creation or ownership of his photographs. The court held that the claim improperly repackaged a copyright dispute as a Lanham Act false-advertising claim. Under the cited Supreme Court and Ninth Circuit precedents, misrepresentations about authorship or copyright licensing status generally do not concern the nature, characteristics, or qualities of goods for purposes of the false-advertising provision at issue.

The court therefore dismissed the false-advertising claim. It granted leave to amend because Logan might be able to allege that Meta misrepresented some other aspect of the photographs’ nature, characteristics, or qualities.

Digital Millennium Copyright Act

For Logan’s claim concerning false copyright management information under 17 U.S.C. § 1202(a), the court held that Meta’s generic copyright tag at the bottom of each Facebook user page was not copyright management information conveyed in connection with Logan’s photographs. The tag was separated from the photographs and was not located on or next to them. The court dismissed that claim, with leave to amend.

For Logan’s claim concerning removal or alteration of copyright management information under 17 U.S.C. § 1202(b), the court found that the complaint adequately identified the allegedly removed information, including Logan’s name, the photograph title, and a link to the Creative Commons licensing terms. Because that information appeared directly beneath the photographs on Wikimedia, it was sufficiently close to qualify as copyright management information conveyed in connection with the photographs.

The claim still failed because the complaint did not adequately allege the required knowledge and intent. The court held that embedding a photograph outside the surrounding webpage context did not, by itself, show that Meta intentionally removed or altered copyright information or knew that the removal would induce, enable, facilitate, or conceal infringement. The court also found that the allegations about the scale of Facebook’s embedding tool did not plausibly show that Meta knew third parties had removed Logan’s copyright information. The court dismissed the DMCA claim, with leave to amend.

Disposition

The court granted Meta’s motion to dismiss all claims. It granted Logan leave to amend all claims within 21 days of the order because amendment would not be futile. The order did not state that the dismissals were with or without prejudice.