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A growing number of people are experimenting with federated alternatives to social media like Mastodon, either by joining an “instance” hosted by someone else or creating their own instance by running the free, open-source software on a server they control. (See more about this movement and joining the fediverse here).
The fediverse isn’t a single, gigantic social media platform like Facebook or Youtube. It’s an expanding ecosystem of interconnected sites and services that let people interact with each other no matter which one of these sites and services they have an account with. That means people can tailor and better control their own experience of social media and be less reliant on a monoculture developed by a handful of tech giants.
For people hosting instances, however, it can also mean some legal risk. Fortunately, there are some relatively easy ways to mitigate that risk – if you plan ahead. To help people do that, this guide offers an introduction to some common legal issues, along with a few practical considerations.
Two important notes: (1) This guide is focused on legal risks that flow from hosting other people’s content, under U.S. law. In general, the safe harbors and immunities discussed below will not protect you if you are directly infringing copyright or defaming someone. (2) Many of us at EFF are lawyers, but we are not YOUR lawyers. This guide is intended to offer a high-level overview of U.S. law and should not be taken as legal advice specific to your particular situation.
Copyright
Copyright law gives the rightsholder substantial control over the use of expressive works, subject to several important limits such as fair use. Violations may result in ruinous damage awards if some of your users share infringing material via your instance and if you are found to be responsible for that infringement under doctrines of “secondary liability” for copyright infringement.
However, the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, 17 USC §…
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