Disclaimers etc?

[Phaser]

I run www.yorkshirejunkies.co.uk/gallery - a gallery of Yorkshire graffiti photos where people can upload their own etc...

Obviously as you can imagine a large percentage of the stuff which is uploaded is illegal graffiti.

I've heard of writers getting busted and images from the gallery being used as evidence against them. On the other hand i've heard the police commenting on how good it is because of the nice design (lol) and how it shows the more positive side of graffiti.

No-one has contacted me asking me to take the site down or anything.

We also have this disclaimer:

The site, operated by Yorkshire Junkies, contains within it a number of areas of general interest that provide information and services to the user. Most of the content is provided by and is the responsibility of the third party creator/poster and yorkshirejunkies has no responsibility for such content, as it is merely providing a service to you.

www.yorkshirejunkies.co.uk does not encourage any illegal activities.

Does that stand for anything?

Could I get into trouble for something like promoting an illegal activity?

 

[stoofa]

Disclaimers are usually not worth anything to be honest with you.
If you are going to allow any kind of submissions on your website you cannot just leave your site to run itself and hide behind a disclaimer.
The same goes for anyone with a forum or blog on their site too.

Your site could become some hotbed of illegal porn hosting and they aren't going to simply slap you on the wrist if you're site was found just because of a disclaimer.
Also advocation of illegal activities is a very grey area.
You disclaim and say that you are simply posting pictures and that is it.
I believe a site tried a similar defence a few years ago offering links to illegal software downloads under the disclaimer that it was the downloaders responsability to stay licensed etc.
I believe they lost.
Proceed with caution and make sure there is a valid way people can get in touch with you and ask you to remove material.
At least this way you can start a discussion rather than the first you hear about things is a court summons.

 

[paulsheffII]

Wow, some of those are brilliant. Normally I hate graffiti but there is some amazing stuff on there.

I think they would need to prove that the presence of the site was causing an increase in graffiti to be on there. Loads of stock image sites carry shots of graffiti, you're just cataloging it.

See if you can get hold of and publish a list of legal graffiti sites as a show of faith. Might help you somewhat if the worst came to the worst.

http://www.lmusu.org.uk/clubs_RenderPage.asp?clubid=6631&pageid=21271

 

[Phaser]

Well, we have got a listing of legal walls on the website. We're also doing in depth articles and reviews on up and coming artists etc too so I think overall there is more positive than negative.