Hi all,
I run an image hosting site. A user submitted a copyrighted image and now the copyright holder has asked to take down the offending image, which I did immediately. But he is asking to pay for damages. Which are of ridiculous amounts.
Please help and advise what do I do from here. Thanks!
First things first, Daniweb is not a legal community and therefore you shouldn't trust anything that you read on here to do with the law, and instead you should consult a legal solicitor or lawyer.
In terms of your question, it depends on your location as to what laws you need to follow and be aware of. If for example you are in the USA you can sometimes be indemified from such problems with a DMCA Safe Harbour. This however shall only work if you have followed the appropriate steps for this to happen.
The other main areas that you need to look at are your terms and conditions, who is responsible once the image has been uploaded? These are probably your best bet, and if they are written properly (which if you run an image hosting site I would of hoped you included various clauses to protect yourself) then you might be able to push the blame onto the original uploader.
As I say, there are a lot of variables and your best person to speak to would be an IP lawyer.
I'm going to definitely second what Octet said -
Daniweb is not a legal community and therefore you shouldn't trust anything that you read on here to do with the law, and instead you should consult a legal solicitor or lawyer.
Unfortunately I am not a lawyer, but from what I do know about my studies in law - if this individual is asking for damages - he's going to have to PROVE his damages.
Well, if you have your Tos in place, you're not responsible for submitted content, user is. So, give his IP and other data to the authorities, that's it.
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