Influencers Find It’s Tricky to Keep Content and Fan Following

Two recent lawsuits by social-media influencers accusing the website PopSugar of lifting their Instagram images highlight questions about how to protect copyrightable content that, in the digital age, is designed to be shared and liked as much as possible.

Beauty and lifestyle micro-influencers Nita Batra and Brittani Friedman filed separate class-action lawsuits in 2018 accusing PopSugar of reposting misappropriated versions of pictures from their Instagram accounts on its e-shopping site ShopStyle. Batra, who has 287,000 followers, agreed to a settlement June 10, leaving the legal questions unaddressed.

The lawsuit by Friedman, who has 35,100 followers, could give the same ...