Image optimizer

[DimNull]

A cautionary tale:
I know your intentions are well meaning but providing a way for a user to change ANYTHING on, about an image could open you to copyright infringement. I have been through this before and I am speaking from a place of knowing this as I have been in it with a web site changing some of my graphics that where copyright by me. It is unfortunate, but most users will not comply with the law and take any image they find and modify it anyway they care to. It is because of this I have had to have one site that use to do this stop doing it through legal means. I really like this site and again I am sure you are well meaning but you are opening yourself to legal problems allowing anyone to modify any image, and saying that the person signed an agreement saying it was there graphic does not relieve you of responsibility.

[ddadmin]

Well, Image Optimizer just optimizes an image the user has uploaded him/herself in terms of file size. More importantly though, the optimized image isn't made public or available for others to download, just the user that uploaded it in the first place. I can't see any copyright issues stemming from this process.

[djr33]

This is no more illegal than creating graphics software like Photoshop. The tool isn't illegal; what people do with it is. If what a website does helps them distribute or host the copyrighted image, that might be a problem (if the website is aware of this), but even that is in a legal grey area. I don't know the details of your situation, but if it is exactly as you describe, then you probably would have been able to avoid legal problems by approaching the situation in the right way.

If you get a specific complaint about an image (frequently in the form of a cease and desist letter), then you will need to remove that particular image, but they have no legal way to make you take down the tool itself. If it becomes a major problem where people are often saving copyright images and you are hosting them, I can see that someone might want you to take the tool down, but it's a legal grey area at worst, and completely legal at best, as long as you make an attempt to disallow copyrighted images, such as a "report this image" link. This isn't to say that someone won't claim something different, but if you have the time/resources to take them on in court there's no reason you won't win (as long as your goal/actions are truly to stop copyright infringement). If this weren't the case, then how would any website allow uploads of images?