Remove liability for user submitted content
<p>I run a website and recently had a small legal dispute with content posted by a user. A copyright owner wanted me to remove content, I acknowledged the request, requested for proof of ownership, confirmed ownership, removed the infringing content and the copyright owner left me alone.</p>

<p>I'm happy to remove infringing content but not sure how explicitly I should tell content owners about this.
I have a contact and copyright infringment link clearly available on my website where explicit instructions are left on how to make a report.</p>

<p>Am I required to have a disclaimer telling users not to post copyright infringing content? I clearly do not want to be liable for such content.</p>

<p>I've googled some templates and explanations about this but they refer more to taking ownership of user submitted content, not removing ownership.</p>

<p>for reference my website is kek.host and I provide services which keep users anonymous such as text hosting, email forwarding, chatrooms.</p>

<p><strong>Edit</strong>: The servers are located in the united states currently, although that changes roughly once a week and across several countries including canada, australia, russia, netherlands and a few more I'm not yet aware of.</p>

<p><strong>Clarification of Question</strong>: Am I legally obligated to explicitly tell users not to upload copyright infringing or illegal content?</p>

<p>For example, shops don't need "Stealing is a crime" stickers, it's just implied. Do the same rules apply to me?</p>

<p>Thank you all for the help in answering my question.</p>

<p>I've spoken with a lawyer through a friend of a friend and he explained that as long as I provide a way for people to make complaints about illegal or copyright infringing content and respond or make [and log] effort to investigate promptly, I'm pretty much in the clear.</p>

<p>In the end no disclaimer is needed, the idea that you wouldn't upload such content is already implied due to the nature of the content.</p>

<p>So I'm gonna add this bad-boy as the entire disclaimer and call it a day.</p>

<p><img src="https://i.stack.imgur.com/8IHCP.jpg" alt="You Wouldn&#39;t Download A Car"></p>

<p>Goodluck with the beta, I'm sure I'll be back here.</p>

copyright liability dmca ownership