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I have planed to build a image sharing website like Imgur. Users can upload images and others can vote them.
The problem what I face is, what happen users upload others copyright photos? In other means how to deal with user generated content without getting any legal issues?
Will I have a legal issue because of other users uploading copyright images for my site?
If your answer is "Yes", how biggest website like Facebook, YouTube, Imgur, StackOverFlow prevent from legal copyright issues?
In the United States, they are protected from copyright issues by a law that makes it so content creators cannot sue these websites. They have to sue the uploader.
The Digital Millennium Copyright Act creates a “safe harbor” for these companies, but also places a responsibility on them. If the content owner complains that their works are on Facebook, YouTube or who ever, that website has to remove it. This is called a DMCA takedown notice. As long as they continue to follow that requirement, you cannot sue them.
Other countries have followed suit and more or less copies that law, so most Western nations now require takedowns upon notification and limit lawsuits to targeting the actual uploader.
