Meta quietly delays controversial update that critics say will allow website scraping; Fast Company, October 23, 2026

 SARAH FIELDING, Fast Company; Meta quietly delays controversial update that critics say will allow website scraping

"Earlier this month, Meta Platforms announced controversial new commercial terms of use for business accounts that critics said would give the social media giant broad authority to crawl and scrape web content associated with those accounts.

The new commercial terms—met by strong outrage from news publishers that produce online content and rely on Meta’s platforms for distribution—were set to go into effect on Friday, October 30.

Now, without any notice, Meta has pushed back the date of the change by three weeks to Friday, November 20. The delay comes one day after a major trade group for news publishers sent a letter to CEO Mark Zuckerberg demanding that the forthcoming terms be withdrawn.

Despite the delayed date, the controversial language in the updated terms appeared to still be intact as of Friday...

On Thursday, October 22, the News/Media Alliance, which represents over 2,000 publications, wrote an open letter to Zuckerberg demanding that the company withdraw the updated commercial terms of use before they go into effect. 

The letter points to concerns that Meta will use publishers’ own content to compete with them, while giving them minimal ability to use Meta’s services and block ad crawlers. It further states that the new terms of use “grant Meta the right to exploit, without prior permission or fair compensation, journalism”

“These harms threaten the financial viability of the free press,” the letter, signed by News/Media Alliance president and CEO Danielle Coffey, further states.

It continues: “Once Meta has copied publishers’ content and built it into its products, the harm will be practically impossible to undo.”

Photographer sues Rice after Coffeehouse uses copyrighted muffin photo; Rice Thresher, October 28, 2025

Noah Berz , Rice Thresher; Photographer sues Rice after Coffeehouse uses copyrighted muffin photo

[Kip Currier: Another cautionary tale to not "scrape" stuff from the Internet and use it for one's commercial business.

(Oh, wait...that's what Big Tech did with billions of copyrighted works they "scraped" from the Web and pirate book libraries to develop their proprietary IP-protected AI products, too, right?)

At any rate, this "federal copyright-registered blueberry muffin photo" story is another reminder that it'll save you money, time, and possible reputational damage to do one of the following: take your own photo of a blueberry muffin; hire someone to do it; license a photo; or ask permission to use it.

And if you do use a photo for your business venture, give the photographer/copyright creator attribution...

Like this photo I took of my mother's delicious Iron Skillet Blueberry Scones!]

[Excerpt]

"A lawsuit has been filed against Rice, accusing Rice Coffeehouse of using a copyrighted photograph without permission to advertise on their Instagram page and website. 

The Oct. 17 complaint was filed on behalf of Meggan Hill, a photographer and chef who posts her recipes online. The photo in question is a blueberry muffin photo, featured on Hill’s website with an accompanying recipe.

The lawsuit was filed in a Houston federal district court by Hill’s attorney, Layla Nguyen of SRipLaw, an intellectual property law firm based in Boca Raton, Florida. According to the case briefing, Hill tried to notify the university of her allegations twice before suing but received no response. 

“To date, the parties have failed to resolve this matter,” the briefing reads. “Rice failed to respond to any communications.”

The lawsuit alleges that Chaus copied Hill’s photograph titled “Blueberry Muffins - Culinary Hill 1200x800” from the internet and displayed it online to promote the addition of blueberry muffins to their menu. 

In the lawsuit, Hill claims she discovered the photograph on the Chaus website on Jan. 7 — over a year after she registered the image with the Register of Copyrights. Hill allegedly reached out to Rice with her complaint on Jan. 29 and Feb. 28 before filing the suit."