User Generated Content Clauses for Photography Websites

If you're running a photography website where people can upload their own photos, you'll need to cover this in your website Terms and Conditions. In particular, you'll need to understand how a user generated content clause works, and what it should look like.

This article will cover what a user generated content clause is, what it needs to cover, and a number of examples of how other websites have tackled this.

Let's get started.

What are User Generated Content Clauses?

A user generated content clause is a clause that covers any content or material that is uploaded to your website that is not created by you, such as user generated content.

Here's an example of a clause from GuruShots that establishes what user generated content is:

You'll need to determine what types of images, photographs or other content are likely to be uploaded to your website. You also need to decide how you are likely to use that content. You can see from the example from GuruShots that it specifies "hosting, sharing, and publishing" the relevant user generated content.

If you have a photography website that allows others to upload photos, images or videos, these will all be user-generated content. If users can comment on submissions, or provide other content such as image descriptions or meta descriptions, this will also be user generated content.

This will apply whether your website is a portfolio-sharing website, a website that sells stock images like Shutterstock, an image hosting website like Imgur, or another similar type of website.

When content is uploaded to your website by others, you won't own the copyright or other intellectual property rights in this material. You also won't necessarily have complete control over what they could upload, or what the content of this material is.

A user generated content clause establishes licensing between you and your users, sets out any warranties or disclaimers, and may also state appropriate content or guidelines around what is acceptable and what is not.

User-generated clauses are not mandatory. But they can be a helpful way to limit your liability, and set out clear rules for your photography website when you have user-generated photos or images.

You can include the user generated content clause in your website Terms of Use (also known as Terms of Service or Terms and Conditions), and/or in your Privacy Policy.

We'll now take a look in more detail at what these clauses should cover.

What Should User Generated Content Clauses Cover for Photography Websites?

User generated content clauses should cover the following key points or key sections:

• Licensing: A license is an agreement or clause that deals with intellectual property. For user generated content this could include both licenses that users give to you to display their content, and licenses that may be given to other users who wish to download a photograph or image from the website.
• Warranties: Warranties are promises that someone makes, that claim a certain standard or agreement that something will happen or has been done. For photography websites, this could be a warranty about the way that the photography hosting or display will work. Alternatively, you could ask your users for a warranty that they have done something (such as obtaining rights to photographs).
• Disclaimers: Disclaimers are legal statements that deny or limit responsibility for an action or lack of action. This could be, in the context of user generated content, that you disclaim responsibility for photos that are uploaded to your website.
• Appropriate content and website guidelines: When users can upload content, you can create guidelines, clauses, or sections of clauses, that specify what behavior or content is appropriate.

Let's take a look at each of those in more detail.

Licensing

Licenses establish how intellectual property is dealt with between you and your users.

This example from Shutterstock's user generated content clause shows how licenses are set out between the users and Shutterstock:

You can see that a limited, worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free license is granted in this clause from users to Shutterstock. This is an important aspect to cover in your clause. Consider what kind of license you will need from your users to display their images or other user generated content.

The clause also covers what the licensed uses are of the content, including the right to copy, transmit, distribute, perform and display the content, as well as to make derivative works of it. Make sure your clause also covers what you expect to do with any user generated content, especially if you plan to use it in any ways that might not be covered by a standard clause.

This clause from Imgur covers licenses as well as warranties within one clause:

You can see that the license granted to Imgur is also a non-exclusive, royalty-free, perpetual, irrevocable, worldwide license. The Imgur clause also covers the following uses: displaying online in any present or future media, making derivative works, as well as allowing downloads or distribution.

Note that the clause also says that the license ends when the user deletes user generated content from the Imgur website, but that this does not apply to sublicenses or public works.

Here's another example from Pixabay. Here you can see similar terms as the other clauses, including that it specifies commercial and non-commercial purposes:

This example from SmugMug shows how a licensing section is included in the larger user content clause:

This clause specifies the uses of the user generated content more clearly. This includes providing the SmugMug services, complying with user instructions, processing product sales, complying with legal requirements, and disclosing user content in some situations.

Now let's take a look at the warranty aspect of user generated content clauses.

Warranties

Warranties are legal agreements that set out any promises you are making to the users of your photography websites.

Most user generated content clauses would ask for warranties from the users who are uploading content. These warranties would be, for example, that the user has obtained any relevant third-party rights for posting images to your photography website.

Here's an example from Shutterstock:

You can see that the clause requires the user to warrant that they have all the necessary rights to submit the user generated content to Shutterstock, and to grant the licenses required. It also requires that the user warrants that Shutterstock will not need to obtain any licenses, and that the user generated content does not infringe the rights of any third party.

Here's another example from Pixabay that shows a similar warranty:

Note that it mentions users must alone own all the rights to any user generated content that is uploaded. This is a stricter version of this clause. Whether you need such a strict version depends on how much liability you want to protect yourself from, and the likelihood that users will upload potentially infringing content.

Here's another example from Unsplash:

This clause requires the user to be the creator and owner of the user generated content. The clause also requires a warranty from the user that any user generated content does not infringe any third party rights.

As you can see, these example clauses and parts of clauses are all relatively similar. The warranty part of the user generated content clause is often similar, because photography websites need to protect themselves against similar issues.

Now let's take a look at the disclaimer part.

Disclaimers

A disclaimer is a statement that denies or limits responsibility. In the context of user generated content, photography websites usually disclaim responsibility for any content that has been uploaded by users.

This is because the website owner cannot possibly anticipate what could be uploaded, including photographs that infringe upon someone else's rights, or images with illegal content.

This example from Unsplash shows the disclaimer part of the user generated content clause:

In this example you can see that Unsplash explains there is no way for it to monitor user generated content that gets uploaded. As a result, the disclaimer says that Unsplash is "under no obligation ... to monitor, edit, or control" the user generated content, and that it is "not responsible" for the content. This helps to limit the liability of Unsplash, if illegal or infringing content was uploaded to Unsplash.

This example from GuruShots follows a similar approach:

Note that the language is clear: "GuruShots expressly disclaims any and all liability" in connection with user generated content.

In the example below from Imgur, the disclaimer clause is separate from the user generated content clause, and is instead bundled with warranties and an indemnity.

It's up to you whether you include a disclaimer in your user generated content clause, or draft it as a separate clause.

You can see, similar to Unsplash, the clause says that Imgur has no duty to monitor any content on the website, and doesn't assume responsibility for it.

Appropriate Content and Website Guidelines

Alongside licensing, warranties and disclaimers, you'll also need to include a section, either in your user generated content clause or elsewhere, about appropriate content or other guidelines for user generated content.

This helps to be clear about your expectations of website users, and can also support your disclaimers or limitations of liability. If you've been clear about what is acceptable, it's easier to deny responsibility for something unacceptable that has been uploaded.

Here's an example from Shutterstock's user generated content clause:

You can see that Shutterstock includes a clear bullet-point list of types of content that are not permitted on the website. It's easy for the user to read, and clear what is not allowed.

This next example from Pixabay also shows a similar list, with additional requirements for what is allowed and not allowed:

For your clause, you need to decide what types of images you want to prohibit, and include a list of these. Bullet points are a great way to make it easy to read and accessible for your users.

Here's another example from Pixabay that shows how you can link to other guidelines documents in your user generated content clause:

Having sets of guidelines for quality, content or behavior can help to make sure your users know what to expect. It also helps to protect you from liability.

Summary

Having a clause to cover user generated content is vitally important for your photography website, if you allow users to upload photographs, images or videos, or to post comments or other metadata.

Your user generated content clause should include information on licensing, warranties, and disclaimers, and you may also want to establish a set of guidelines or a clause on appropriate behavior.

With these parts of the clause covered, you can be sure that you have a clear agreement with your users, and have protected yourself from liability as well as possible.