You send a takedown notice and the reply arrives within the hour: "This is fair use." Sometimes it's a forum moderator, sometimes a leak site's copy-paste policy page, sometimes a fan who reposted your PPV set and thinks he did nothing wrong. The phrase sounds legal, which is exactly why people use it. Often it works, and no second notice follows.
Here's what those two words are worth. Fair use isn't a type of content, and it isn't a permission you claim before uploading. Under US law, it's a defense argued in court, not a permission claimed in a comment section. The person who copied admits they copied and asks a judge to excuse it. Almost nobody who says it on a leak site will ever say it where it counts.
A defense, not a permission
Section 107 of the US Copyright Act doesn't list any safe types of content. It gives courts four factors to weigh case by case, with no bright lines. Nobody gets to declare their own use fair. If it ever comes to a lawsuit, a court decides, and the person who copied and is now relying on fair use bears the burden of proving it.
| The four factors | What a court asks | A reposted paid set |
|---|---|---|
| Purpose and character | Is the new use different, or does it compete? | Same purpose, same audience |
| Nature of the work | Is it creative work? | Original photos and video |
| Amount used | How much was taken, and was it the heart of it? | The whole file, often the whole set |
| Market effect | Does the copy replace the sale? | It exists to replace the purchase |
The factor that ends it. Market effect asks whether the copy stands in for the sale. A free download of a paid set has no other job but directly competing with that set, and nothing in the other three factors survives that.
Six excuses, and why none of them hold
- "It already leaked, so it's public now." A leak doesn't cancel your copyright. A movie leaked before its release date is still protected the next morning, and so is your set.
- "I'm not making money from it." Not earning money is one small part of one factor, and it can't save a use that wipes out the market for the original. It's often untrue anyway, since these sites sell ads and memberships.
- "I credited you and linked your page." Credit is a courtesy, not a license. Copyright is a permission system, not a citation system. Credit can even make the harm worse by pointing people to what they now don't need to buy.
- "I added commentary, so it's transformative." Transformative means the new use has a different purpose, not that something was added around the original. The Supreme Court tightened this in Andy Warhol Foundation v. Goldsmith (2023), asking whether the new use shares the original's purpose and replaces it. A caption doesn't change the file.
- "I paid for it, so it's mine." A subscription buys access, not ownership. The rights to copy, share, and display your work stay with you under section 106. A movie ticket works the same way.
- "You can't copyright porn." The Copyright Act has no related exception. Protection covers original work that's been recorded or saved, with no test for whether a judge approves of the subject.
In Europe, there's no fair use at all
EU law has no open-ended fair use doctrine. Instead, Article 5 of the InfoSoc Directive has a closed list of narrow exceptions: quotation, criticism, parody, private copying, and news reporting. Reposting a whole work fits none of those exceptions. On top of that, Article 17 of the 2019 Copyright Directive can make large sharing platforms liable for what their users upload. Someone reposting from Berlin has fewer arguments than someone in Texas, not more.
The tell: almost nobody files a counter-notice
If fair use really covered reposting, fighting the takedown would be the obvious move. US law even provides the form: a counter-notice under section 512(g). But filing one means a statement sworn under penalty of perjury, a real name and address, and agreeing to be taken to US federal court.
That last part is where the confidence disappears. Anonymous reposting and a named legal argument can't exist together. On adult content takedowns, counter-notices are rare, and that's the clearest sign the excuse was never meant to be tested.
What fair use does protect
Fair use is real, and it protects work worth protecting. A reviewer using a few seconds of your trailer or a journalist screenshotting a post to report a story are legitimate uses. Treating them as theft costs you credibility when you go after the real thing. US courts have also said copyright owners should consider fair use before sending a takedown notice (Lenz v. Universal, 2015).
Being right about the law also doesn't remove the file. A site operator who ignores notices won't be moved by a four-factor breakdown, and we won't pretend otherwise.
Where the argument becomes a workflow
Rulta has protected creators since 2015 and files notices as a member of Google's invite-only Trusted Copyright Removal Program. We scan every 30 minutes and deindex infringing pages across Google, Bing, Yahoo, and DuckDuckGo. Deindexed is not deleted, but to the person hunting for your content it might as well be. When a site ignores a notice, a dedicated team escalates to the hosting company instead of logging "no response" and closing the case. Removal at the source is always pursued, but never guaranteed.
Finding out who leaked your content is a separate question. For OnlyFans creators, Rulta Mate can add an invisible per-fan identifier to PPV files you send, so a leak can be traced back to the fan who shared it. Rulta Mate answers who leaked it. Rulta answers how it comes down.
FAQ
Who has to prove fair use, me or the person who reposted?
They do. Fair use is a defense, so the person who copied has to raise it and prove it. A leak somewhere else doesn't change that.
They credited me and linked my page. Is that enough?
No. Credit isn't a license, and it doesn't change any of the four factors.
Can adult content be copyrighted?
Yes. The Copyright Act protects original work that's been recorded or saved, with no exception based on subject matter or taste.
Does fair use exist in the EU?
Not the US version. EU law uses a closed list of narrow exceptions, like quotation, parody, and news reporting, and the EU's top court has ruled that list can't be stretched. A whole-work repost fits none of them.
Should I expect a counter-notice?
Rarely. Filing one takes a real name, an address, and agreeing to US federal court. If one is filed, the platform is expected to restore the content between 10 and 14 business days later unless the platform is notified that you've taken the case to court.
Stop debating the excuse, remove the file
Scanning every 30 minutes, deindexing across the major search engines, and a team that escalates when a notice goes unanswered. Book a free call with us to see how it works for your content.
Sources: Cornell LII, 17 U.S.C. 106 · Cornell LII, 17 U.S.C. 107 · Cornell LII, 17 U.S.C. 512 · Supreme Court of the United States, Andy Warhol Foundation v. Goldsmith (2023) · Lenz v. Universal Music Corp. (9th Cir. 2015) · EUR-Lex, Directive 2001/29/EC, Article 5 · EUR-Lex, Directive (EU) 2019/790, Article 17 · Court of Justice of the EU, Funke Medien (C-469/17) · Rulta, Google DMCA
This post is for informational purposes only and does not constitute legal advice.
