Legal implications of allowing the public to upload images to a website?

[TonyLoco23]

I am building a relatively simple interactive website that displays images. It is really just a blog.

I would like users of the site to be able to upload images to particular topics. But I dont want to have to require them to log-in for a number of reasons:

1) It will discourage people from bothering

2) It will make the pages more crowded (I need to have a space in the corner saying "welcome _____ , log-in, log-out, etc.) I want to save as much space on each page for my content.

3) I will need to develop a whole system of password encryption, emailing lost passwords, allowing users to change their password, etc. which is virtually more elaborate than the entire website itself.

Anyway I wanted to know what the legal implications of allowing users to upload their own images are? Many sites such as myspace, etc. allow users to upload images but they also require them to create accounts. I do not get what difference creating an account really does if all you have to provide is an email address. Suppose a user creates an account and uploads a bunch of copyright protected images and then closes the email account. How does anybody get hold of that user?

So therefore would I be ok to allow users to upload images and have a checkbox saying "This is my own image, etc." and maybe they can provide their email address that I could store in a table but not display on the webpage. How is that any different from having them create an account?

I will also review any images that are uploaded.

[tracknut]

This could be a question you'd want to ask a lawyer about, but I'll give you a scenario. I'm a photographer by trade, so theft of images is a common discussion. The normal process when a photographer finds an image of his that's been posted on a website in violation of copyright is to send an invoice to the owner of the website, for what would have been the charge to use that image. In your situation, what would you do with this invoice? If you had a login account and good tracking for the user that sent you the image, you could make some effort to contact that user, forward the invoice, and at least "share the pain". If you have no proof of who put the image there, my guess is that you alone are the one under the gun.

Just a thought here, I am not a lawyer....

Dave

[TonyLoco23]

Hmm, well if that is the case, companies like myspace must get inundated with invoices on a daily basis.

If I kept track of user's email addresses in my database then theoretically I could pass the invoice on to the user that uploaded the photo anyway.