Question about copyright/licensing

What is the name of your state?What is the name of your state?What is the name of your state? North Carolina

I am a big fan of a particular sport. One of the things I enjoy is surfing the internet and looking at photos fans take in their respective cities for their respective professional teams.

I would like to build a website where fans of this particular sport could post their pictures in order to develop a sort of searchable database of pictures.
Visitors to the site would be allowed to upload only those photos that they took themselves and are willing to make freely available to other fans. All uploaded photos will be reviewed before being made available on the website.

The photos would not be for sale. Viewing and downloading them for personal use would be totally free. Photos such as those taken by members of the media, collectable cards, photos containing watermarks from other websites and officially licensed photos would not be allowed and would be removed immediately if they are found to be copyrighted or licensed elsewhere.

By putting together such a collection of fan-taken photos, would I be looking at any kind of licensing or copyright violations as long as I'm not charging anyone for the service (aside from any potential website advertisers)?

In my mind, this would be no different than any other fan site on the internet. Am I mistaken in this or is every site that puts up their own photos violating official licensing laws?

If you are just putting up pictures that fans take, it is very unlikely that you would run afoul of any trademark laws -- that doesn't mean that someone won't harass you, of course, but what you are describing is probably okay.

What you need to watch out for is doing things like using the names of sports teams in your webpage's metatags, or using the logos on your page -- those types of things DO run afoul of trademark law. ANYTHING that might cause "confusion" as to whether or not the page is licensed or sponsored by a sports team (unless you actually DO have permission to use the name and\or logo) can give rise to liability under trademark laws.

Thanks

divgradcurl said:

ANYTHING that might cause "confusion" as to whether or not the page is licensed or sponsored by a sports team (unless you actually DO have permission to use the name and\or logo) can give rise to liability under trademark laws.

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Thanks for the answer. In that respect, I have already added a disclaimer to the footer of every page of the site stating that the site is neither sponsored nor endorsed by any of the leagues or teams represented and that they retain all rights to their trademarks and logos. In regards to logos, I am strictly forbidding their use on the site on any of the pages or as avatars in the fan forum. The only way a logo would appear on the site is on a jersey in a photo.

I also state in my disclaimer that I am not attempting to copyright any of the photos uploaded there and that the owners of the photos contain all rights to them. Is there any way that I can still copyright the idea for the site but not the photos uploaded there?

Thanks for the answer. In that respect, I have already added a disclaimer to the footer of every page of the site stating that the site is neither sponsored nor endorsed by any of the leagues or teams represented and that they retain all rights to their trademarks and logos. In regards to logos, I am strictly forbidding their use on the site on any of the pages or as avatars in the fan forum.

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Just so you know, such a disclaimer will have NO EFFECT on whether or not you are infringing a trademark. It sounds like you are taking steps to insure that trademarked logos aren't used without permission -- that's good -- but don't let you guard down and believe that the disclaimers on your page will help you out -- 't'ain't so.

Is there any way that I can still copyright the idea for the site but not the photos uploaded there?

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Well, obviously you won't own the copyrights to the photos -- the people who took the photos own those copyrights -- unless you have them explicitly hand over their rights when they post the pictures.

As far as the site itself goes, you can't copyright an idea. Your site as a whole will be copyrighted, but that doesn't mean that someone else can't see the "idea" (a page for posting sports pics) and create their own page to do the same thing. If they copy the format of you page, they would be violating your copyright; however, if they just take the "idea" and create a whole new page and format, well, there's nothing you can do to prevent that.