Using pictures for website

[a!!!!1]

What is the name of your state? Texas

I started a website last week called "Hot Facebook Girls," it was set up like a blog and anyone could register and upload stuff. Each post was basically just a girl's name and a bunch of pictures of her. In the disclaimer I stated that you can only upload pictures of either yourself or someone who you have received permission from to upload their pictures, although a lot of users disregarded this and just uploaded pictures of random girls from Myspace/Facebook/Google Images/etc without the girls' knowledge.

Although this wasn't the direction I had originally planned for the site, the fact that people were "stealing" girls' pictures meant that there were a lot more posts which led to a lot more traffic and a lot more advertising revenue. Obviously unethical but since it was making a lot more money I decided I didn't really care and I just turned a blind eye.

After awhile some of the girls found out and complained (there was a "report" feature under each post that basically said we'd immediately take down any post that was reported) and I decided to shut the site down. I asked a friend if it's actually illegal and he said it might be defamation, although I'm not sure it is because they were just using pictures, not saying anything bad/untrue about the girls, and the pictures used were already publicly available by the girls putting them on their Myspace profiles and such.

So I'm wondering, is a site like that actually illegal? If it is, would I as the site owner be responsible for what other people upload to the site? Thanks.

 

[The Occultist]

I doubt defamation would be an issue, but you are going to want to be wary of trademark infringement and copyright infringement. The trademark infringement comes from using "facebook", which is obviously a trademarked name, in a way that likely does not comply with their terms of use or licenses. The copyright infringement comes from the photos; people are not allowed to duplicate a photo (or any work for that matter) that they do not own the copyright to. By agreeing to remove all photos that are reported, you are definitely on track to remove/mitigate liability on your part for the infringement, but keep in mind you still might face trouble over it.

EDIT: you may wish to move this post to the forum that deals with trademarks/copyrights, as there are a couple users more knowledgeable than I that frequent those forums that may not necessarily check here to offer their insight.

 

[a!!!!1]

Thanks for the tips, I'll ask over there and see if anyone knows.