Hi! I've read an awful lot on this forum regarding the legal status of images that appear on a website but I'm still confused. Please could someone in the know help? I have a site whereby users can register a link to their website, blog etc. They must also upload an image which appears on my site. Clicking this image takes the browser to their site. The images are compressed to 50 x 50 pixels before appearing or being stored on the web server. What images can users legally upload and how am I to determine this? What wording should I use in the T&C etc? I also have the problem where users upload poor quality images etc. If their site is a suitable standard I have been selecting a suitable image from their website which best matches the poor quality image they uploaded. Is this ok? Thanks for any help.
Sure. The copyright of an image rests with the person who initially produces it whether that be by paint brush, pencil or camera lens. The only exception to this would be if there had been a prior agreement that the copyright would belong to someone else. Quite a lot of copyright holders allow their images to be used as long as a few rules are kept to - for 'non-commercial' purposes or 'not for reproduction' for example. Sometimes the law allows you to use copyrighted material without specifically asking permission - known as fair use. The copyright also expires 50 years after the author dies, so the material becomes free to use after that. In your situation you have to take it on trust that your users are uploading images they have the rights to. Technically you're liable if a copyrighted image appears on your site. Realistically as long as you've made it quite clear that users can only upload their own images it's unlikely you'll get into any trouble if there is an infringement.
Thanks CountryBoy. What about pictures of products, e.g. a picture of a television set for an electrical goods company? Or a picture of Madonna for a music site? Also can I (it's in the signup T&C) change their image to something more suitable taken from their site? If not I'll just have to reject it (mainly due to poor quality and let them know so that they must themselves change it.
Thumbnails are generally seen as "fair use" so you should be pretty safe as far as that aspect goes. Your safest bet would rather be to take a screenshot of the site and make a thumbnail using that.
Thanks Crusader but a thumbnail of a site is not what my site is about. It would not normally provide any sort of clue as to what the site is about and won't attract attention! Have a look and you'll see.
I see what you mean. However the thumbnail suggestion was just something in general. What you are currently doing could, for all intents and purposes, also be seen as a kind of thumbnail of the site. In any case it is very doubtful that you will get into copyright issues with your current implementation.