Shot Over The Bow: Instagram Threatens Pixelfed Over Filter Names‽

After years of operating in the shadows by escorting Instagram refugees away from the metaverse, it appears that @pixelfed@pixelfed.social caught the attention of Facebook over...filters‽

Someone who works at Meta reached out and advised me to rename the filters asap. Imagine being sued over css 😅 #pixelfed (Daniel Supernault)

Going to prepend each filter name with i. Mark my words, Mark, I'm not going away. #pixelfed (Daniel Supernault)

Instagram is trying to intimidate us with threats of legal action. Help us bring awareness to our project by sharing this post, and consider donating if possible. We're not giving up. #fediverse (Pixelfed)

@DansUp@mastodon.social (Pixelfed’s founder) has complied by altering the filter names & the various iChanges can be seen on GitHub.

Was altering the names the right thing to do‽ Legally, yes. It’s unclear whether those filter names are trademarked by Instagram (after all, the words “face & book” are somehow trademarked to Facebook).

I would not be surprised if Instagram takes another legal shot at Pixelfed later on by attempting to stall the pending Pixelfed App from reaching Apple’s App Store & Google’s Play store, respectively.

But then again, Instagram may belay attacking Pixelfed to avoid repeating the mistake of Elon Musk.

Update: I forgot to mention I discovered this story thanks to @atomicpoet@mastodon.social on Mastodon!

👨🏾‍💻 by @darnell@darnellclayton.com 🔛 @darnell@darnell.day 📧 darnell@darnell.day

🕺🏾 Follow my adventures upon: 🐘 Darnell (One) 🦁 Darnell (Movies, Opuses, Entertainment) 📸 Darnell (Out Of Office)

🦹🏾‍♂️ WordPress Workarounds: 💻 Darnell (TeleVerse) 🌍 Darnell (Africa) 👨🏾‍🎨 Darnell (Creative Outlet)

🥷🏾 Other Hideaways: 🧵 Darnell (Threads) 🔞 Darnell (Hard News) 🐬 Darnell (Flipboard)