Facebook Will Let People Claim Ownership of Images and Issue Takedown Requests

Facebook is going to let people take more control over the images they own and where they end up. In an update to its rights management platform, the company is starting to work with certain partners today to give them the power to claim ownership over images and then moderate where those images show up across the Facebook platform, including on Instagram. The goal is to eventually open this feature up to everyone, as it already does with music and video rights.

Facebook didn’t disclose who its partners are, but this could theoretically mean that if a brand like National Geographic uploaded its photos to Facebook’s Rights Manager, it could then monitor where they show up, like on other brands’ Instagram pages. From there, the company could choose to let the images stay up, issue a takedown, which removes the infringing post entirely, or use a territorial block, meaning the post stays live but isn’t viewable in territories where the company’s copyright applies.