As some of you might noticed, I recently changed my image hosting site's forum to use a new simple and lite script. Honestly, after the upgrade I can see traffic increasing and that makes me smile. But then, I received a DCMA notice from Bangbros (adult company) saying several images which copyrighted to them was hosted on my server. Not a big issue as I can immediately delete the images upon receiving complaints but then, what if there are too many to catch up? I wonder how did Imageshack, Photobucket etc detects illegal files or how did they handle DCMA complaints. Since most DC only gives 24hours for clients to act on DCMA complaints, a little more of this comes and I will be in deep trouble as the server may be nullrouted. So, what say you? Should I relocate the image hosting to an offshore server?
For long term solution,i would fully support your decision to move to offshore server. Or another path that you can take is do not accept adult picture.
I agree with Mentos. Although most Data Centers a very lenient with your first few DMCA notices, if you continually receive the notices you may find they unplug the server until you permanently resolve the issue, which in your case would be shutting down your website. So I would also agree with purchasing an off-shore hosting solution.
That is the problem. On the site (clafy.com), I made a tos explaining what can and what not. Still, who read them these days. What could I do to protect myself against DCMA? I mean, something that can saves me time while searching and destroying the affected photos? How does these big companies manage their dcma related issue?
I think Imageshack and other large companies automatically delete all images that are reported as "illegal/copyrighted"..i dont suppose there is any other way of deleting all those images out of the millions in their database. Another method which I think is a bit far fetched is providing companies from whom you get a lot of complaints a secret deletion key, something that is asked when someone clicks delete image. When the key is entered then the image is deleted. This key would only be provided to the company who has complained and could be used by them in case there are any future complaints. Also I think you meant DMCA
FIrst of all, have you considered modifying your script so that images can be reported, and whilst they're in the queue to be checked out by a moderater, then they can't be seen? the only other thing to do is to ensure that all images are checked before they can be visible to the public, however this method is more loborious and it's not the best use of time. How many people do you have working on your site with you?
I think you are using free script dont you? there are many lightweight free scripts which has report functionality. So you can use it. But moving to new script is a pain if you currently hosting a big site because there is high risk that your old images dont work. But I do suggest if you are making decent money with your site go for offshore server like from NL. If you are moving to offshore server I mostly suggest NL server because images will load faster than ever for worldwide regents!
Yes, I'm currently using a free script. Work is in progress to integrate a report system with admin panel to the script although it seems like quite a hassle to do it. Switching to a new script would be fatal as there are already a lot of people who are linking their image. I would be considering switching to offshore server but still, I need to look for a server which is similar to mine now. For now, I manually deleted reported images but I do consider looking for an alternative option to solve this issue.
I guess its never to late though i understand you already have many people linking images to your site but if you get a better script or work on it , it would be a big solution to all these problems you are facing. Maybe you may want to inform your members that this is a one time change and you had to change the script for security issues. Good luck
Yeah, from the look of the images storage on the server, a lot of images there so I guess I got a lot of people linking in. As for telling them about this one time upgrading for security purposes, I think I have to find another reason as not many people like the word "security" on website especially when one need to upgrade due to it.