Ariel Winter Is In A Battle With Instagram Over Copyright Issues Involving One Of Her Photos

Instagram has issued Ariel Winter a copyright violation against one of her pictures and the actress is not impressed.

Modern Family actress, Ariel Winter, who is also an avid Instagram user, recently posted an image of herself taken by a fan. The image shows Ariel Winter, 20, standing at a gas station with arms crossed. She is wearing a grey tank top and looks somewhat annoyed. According to Ariel Winter, the image was snapped by an anonymous person without her permission. She then posted it to her Instagram account with the following caption.

“Honestly the ONLY reason I’m posting this is because I’ve never seen a more accurate photo of myself.”

The image was quite popular and garnered many likes and comments. However, Ariel was recently slapped with a copyright violation email and Instagram removed the image, according to Just Jared.

“We’ve removed or disabled access to the following content that you posted on Instagram because a third party reported that the content violates their copyright,” the email from Instagram read.

Ariel Winter claims that the image was taken without her consent and, since she is in the image, it does not violate copyright laws. She responded to Instagram by posting a screenshot of the offending email and then reposting the original image.

When some fans questioned who actually owned the rights to the image, suggesting that the person who took the picture was the owner and not the model, Ariel responded accordingly.

“I’m not a model that agreed to a shoot I’m a f*cking person that got a photo taken at the gas station,” she stated on her Twitter account.

So, who does own the rights to the image?

When it comes to copyright laws and celebrities, things can get a little hazy, according to Pop Culture. Technically, if someone takes an image of a celebrity in a public space, they own the rights to that image, not the celebrity. However, that image can only be used for “private or educational” purposes, according to a report by ByPeople. Although considering Ariel Winter is the model in the image, she may be able to make a claim on the image.

In addition, images that are posted on social media are “generally considered fair game for other users to re-appropriate.”

This image is the very same one that recently caused Winter’s fellow Modern Family castmate, Sarah Hyland, to clap back at people who were making inappropriate comments on the original image. In a recent Inquisitr article, it was stated that Sarah Hyland was angry that some people were commenting on the fact that Ariel Winter was not wearing a bra in the image.

“To all the pervs commenting on this post?” she responded on the image at the time. “Get offline and get back to your blowup doll ya creeps!”