Images used from official site on fan site

Hello,

I run a completely non-profit non-commercial fan site for a particular sportsman and people are posting up (we don't host) images in our forum that originate from the official website's Flickr account. I got an email telling me that I need to remove the images from this particular forum thread as the images are all rights reserved. I'd like to think that my forum could be considered a service provider and therefore not require me to actively remove copyright images that are posted by other users.

Am I legally required to do this? Or does my forum disclaimer cover me?

I live in the UK and my website is hosted in NL.

 

You should remove the pictures, your disclaimer does not cover you.

 

I read some where that if you have never moderators user's posts based on copyright claims then you may be considered a service provider and therefore not be held liable?

If I do have to remove them, can I wait until I'm given an official court order?

 

This is true to a degree. If you never moderate, and can prove it. However, in the long run,... and this is coming from years of experience on both sides of the issue.... you should just remove it and be done.

When you run into copyright issues, and they notify you, it's best to remove it as they requested within 24 hours.

 

When you say notify, legally that would need to be a legal document? Am I free to ignore the email?

 

You should remove the pictures immediately. If the company decides to get a court order, they will usually wind up suing you for copyright infringement. Do you really want to spend tens of thousands of dollars in legal fees to defend your position, even if you can win? If you do, then you should immediately retain an intellectual property rights attorney. They can demand a usage fee (which they basically get to set) and several thousand dollars per image in not uncommon. You would still need to take down the images after paying if they can prove infringement.

They could also just file a DMCA with your host and get your site taken down, and also get your site de-indexed from all search engines.

 

Thank you for your advice. It seems all very serious which I guess is quite surprising to me considering people are posting copyrighted images in pretty much every forum in existence.