I'm looking to start an image-uploading site where users can upload pictures of their friends, but I know the internet pretty well and I can already predict that people are going to be uploading pictures of random people they find on the internet. All images will be watermarked with a small logo. I don't have the slightest idea when it comes to Copyright, can anybody give me any advice on any precautions I would need to take or rules I'd need to follow? Thanks.
Copyright related issues are probably the least of your worries. Having run a very modestly successful photo sharing site in early 2003 that incorporated some of the functionality you describe, the #1 concern on your mind should be your service being used to proliferate child pornography. One of the primary reasons I discontinued my service stemmed in part from its lack of profitability and exposure to a myriad of civil and criminal legal liabilities. It was simply not something, after further reflection, that I wanted to really focus my attention on at the time. There are appropriate legal safeguards that you can put into place to ensure that you have a legally defensible operation that is relatively immune from civil and criminal penalties. This, however, will require that you visit with a local attorney who has a strong working knowledge of the Internet. I'm not entirely certain what your home country is, but in mine, there are certain safeguards afforded to website operators under certain circumstances -- but for the sake of your own sanity, I highly encourage you to pursue this at the local level with counsel. Incidentally, the tone and nature of my reply shouldn't be taken as my trying to dissuade you from moving ahead with the idea. Running a photo sharing site can really be a lot of fun! It's amazing what kinds of stuff gets shared and it can be a real technical challenge if you're planning to also engineer the underlying infrastructure that will power the site. But there are, indeed, a variety of issues that (based on my experience) you'll encounter sooner or later assuming your site develops a following. * Please note: My comments should neither be construed as legal advice nor as forming an attorney-client relationship.
make sure your tos is clear and they agree to it, you will get the odd copyright infringement notice and more often then not they will also email your host as well which can cause big problems, as long as you respond with in a few hours of the complaint you won't get in to much trouble. i currently run an image host that hosts around a million files, it consumes well over 3tb of bandwidth a month and runs on two dedicated servers the cost of running an image host is great and profit is low not to mention that it will consume allot of your time especially if you code your own scripts and manage your own servers.