eCommerce Tycoon

**thechatking** · 03-25-2005, 05:10 AM

Not sure which forum to put this in - feel free to move it!

It's a simple question, really - can a webmaster/site owner distance themselves from any responsibility for infringement of copyright on items uploaded by registered users? I have an idea, but I'm sure it would be mis-used and people would upload copyrighted material. If I make them agree to some terms and conditions, can I sleep easy at night or will I be dragged to the courts? Also, can I put the copyright responsibility onto the person who uploaded the file?

Any help and guidance is much appreciated.

**JohnJ** · 03-25-2005, 09:46 AM

An excellent description of copyright liability is posted at: http://www.law.cornell.edu/topics/copyright.html

Basically, if I understand your question correctly, the webmaster or website owner is in violation of the US copyright laws if they post copyrighted material on their website without receiving written permission from the copyright owner.

Therefore it means that if you have copyrighted material on your website and a visitor to your website downloads the material you are the person that is going to court, possibly even for multiple violations.

**DevelopedWeb** · 03-27-2005, 02:09 PM

Right, but what of the situation with all the file-sharing programs that exist nowadays? If you tell your users explicitly that they are NOT to upload any copyrighted files to your website, then you're not doing anything wrong at that point.

Once they actually do start uploading them, so long as you have access to everyone's files I believe you will be partly responsible.

Look at what's happening with all the BitTorrent sites now--even the ones that post links to other sites' files are being shut down.

It's a touchy issue, but I bet there's a way to get around it. You could try contacting the webmasters of sites similar to the one you plan on launching and asking them how they're doing it...

**Brian07002** · 05-24-2005, 11:49 PM

Hi DevelopedWeb,

I think your *best bet* is to avoid that type of website. I know that there are many people who run these websites, and I had scary thoughts of doing it long ago. If you un-sure about it in *ANYWAY* and I mean, even if you feel like it *MAY NOT* be as profitable as others, you definitley should avoid it at *ALL COSTS*. In fact, places like napster, they're experts at what they do, they had there entire system setup within days, and just waited for the 'right' time to market it, and once they did...POOF! They literally disappeared! My suggestion, is forget that idea...Really...It's too risky!

-Brian