As social media platforms such as Instagram and Snapchat have gained popularity, so too has the practice of “embedding.” Embedding is the incorporation and display by a third-party website of social media posts containing photographs or other content that is stored on and retrieved from the social media posting platform.

We report here on several recent cases in New York federal courts that addressed the unsettled question of whether news organizations and other publishers infringe an author’s rights by embedding social media posts containing copyrighted photographs. Goldman v. Breitbart News Network, LLC, 302 F. Supp. 3d 585 (S.D.N.Y. 2018); Sinclair v. Ziff Davis, LLC, 454 F. Supp. 3d 342 (S.D.N.Y. 2020), reconsidered, 2020 WL 3450136; McGucken v. Newsweek LLC, 464 F. Supp. 3d 594 (S.D.N.Y. 2020); Walsh v. Townsquare Media, Inc., 464 F. Supp. 3d 570 (S.D.N.Y. 2020); Boesen v. United Sports Publ’ns, Ltd., No. 20-CV-1552, 2020 WL 6393010 (E.D.N.Y. Nov. 2, 2020).