The Daily Mail is being sued over alleged “systematic” lifting of “thousands” of images from social media without permission or payment.
A photographer named Matthew Moore who said one of his own images had been taken without permission has launched a class action lawsuit in New York on behalf of himself and anyone else in the US who has been affected in the past three years.
The legal complaint calls this behaviour “standard practice” at the Daily Mail and is seeking a declaration that it violates US copyright law.
The legal complaint alleges that lawyers found 107 articles that contained at least one photo that had been taken from social media with only a credit to the platform (for example © Instagram) over the course of just nine days in June.
It claims that assuming a payment of between $2,500 and $25,000 per violation of the US Digital Millennium Copyright Act, this rate of alleged infringement would open the Daily Mail up to “more than ten million dollars per year”.
The claim argues that the Daily Mail ensures its use “stays hidden” to the copyright owners by adding a “false credit” to the social media platform the image was taken from.
This is despite the fact the platforms do not own the copyright according to their own terms and conditions, it says.
But it means that rightsholders searching for their name or using credit alerts may never see the usage.
Mail copied photographer’s image shared on Instagram
Moore photographed actress Annie Sertich, gave her a copy – retaining the copyright – and she later posted it on her Instagram account.
The legal claim says the Daily Mail took it from there for an article about the VHS Dates video series (in which Sertich stars) published on 24 December 2025, giving copyright credit only to Instagram.
It said the image was not embedded or screenshotted from Instagram but a copy had been made to publish it within the Daily Mail’s CMS.
Most individuals are unable to sue for copyright infringement because, the claim says, they must have ordinarily registered the work within three months of its first publication or before the infringement began.
The case therefore aims to represent both creators whose photos were republished with a credit to Instagram or another platform (under alleged copyright management information infringement) and those who do hold a US copyright registration for the work in question.
‘Systematic unpaid taking of photographs’
The lawsuit states that Moore’s case “was no isolated lapse… it reflects a uniform, centralised, and ongoing business practice. Defendants build and monetise their high-traffic, advertising-driven news platforms, in part, on the systematic and unpaid taking of photographs that ordinary people create and post to their own social media accounts”.
The claim notes that the Daily Mail pays and properly credits wire services and stock photo agencies but says the same does not happen for photos “lifted” from individual people’s social media accounts.
“It publishes first and pays only if caught – wagering that the people it takes from will never learn their work was used and could not afford to pursue it if they did.”
It notes that the Daily Mail has been “sued for it repeatedly across more than 15 years, and not one suit changed a thing”.
In 2010 US celebrity photo agency Mavrix Photo lodged a legal claim for more than $1m alleging ten sites of images were used online and in print without permission, a case the publisher ultimately settled with a confidential payment.
The claim said the Daily Mail has repeatedly settled cases, “paid the creator who had caught them, and left the practice running”.
The Daily Mail has been contacted for comment.
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