> I have a painting. You visit. By shining light on the painting I'm reproducing the image on your retinas. You say copyright violation? I say preposterous! Wha

> I have a painting. You visit. By shining light on the painting I'm reproducing the image on your retinas. You say copyright violation? I say preposterous! What if I take a picture of the painting that I own and show you? Uh oh. Those are all fair use. The definition of fair use is intentionally somewhat vague, leaving a lot of room for courts to exercise discretion, but showing an artwork to a guest and taking a photo of a copyrighted work for noncommercial purposes are clearly protected by precedent. Two of the key factors a court will look at in deciding whether a use is fair is the use's purpose and character and what effect (if any) the use will have on the market for the used work[0]. Threads is an ad-supported, commercial endeavor, so I don't foresee them winning on a fair use argument when they republish a post from another site in order to sell ads next to it. If you have your own mastodon instance and you sell a single ad on it, then Threads would, by republishing your post, be depriving you of revenue for your creative work in order to increase the value of their own ad real estate via exhibition of your copyrighted content. [0]: https://www.justia.com/intellectual-property/copyright/photos-of-copyrighted-or-trademarked-works/ https://www.justia.com/intellectual-property/copyright/photo...