Social Media Eyes Embeds as Courts Mull Copyright Limits (2)

A New York federal district court has been scratching at a decade of informal consensus that embedding posts from social media platforms like Instagram can’t infringe copyrights.

The lingering legal uncertainty—plus a desire to keep rightsholders using the services—could prompt platforms to act first by introducing technical tools to let users disable embeds before courts clarify the law, attorneys said. Facebook has already said it is weighing such a capacity, which some sites including YouTube have already implemented.

Facebook Inc. recently clarified that the terms of service for its Instagram app don’t grant permission to embed copyrighted work elsewhere. The ...