Legal Copyright Disclaimers: What Disclaimers are Needed on my Website

Most websites need a disclaimer, a terms and conditions page, and a privacy policy at minimum, and a cookie policy if the site sets non-essential cookies. Depending on what the site does, it may also need a copyright disclaimer and DMCA agent registration, an FTC-compliant affiliate disclosure, a warranty disclaimer, and a professional-advice disclaimer for medical, legal, or financial content. Together these documents narrow a site owner's legal exposure and give visitors clear notice of the terms under which they are using the site.

Why disclaimers matter for website liability

Whenever someone visits your website, in the eyes of the law you have entered into a relationship with that visitor. If your content, product, or service causes harm and you failed to warn of a known risk, general negligence law in most US states lets an injured visitor sue for damages. Courts typically weigh whether the risk was foreseeable, whether the business warned of it, and how serious the resulting injury was.

A well documented illustration is Liebeck v. McDonald's Restaurants. In 1994, a New Mexico jury found that McDonald's coffee, served at nearly 190 degrees Fahrenheit, was unreasonably dangerous and that the company had not adequately warned customers. The jury awarded $200,000 in compensatory damages, reduced to $160,000 for Liebeck's own 20 percent comparative fault, plus $2.7 million in punitive damages. The trial court later reduced the punitive award to $480,000 through remittitur, bringing the combined award to roughly $640,000. The parties settled confidentially before final judgment.

The more popular a website, product, or company becomes, the more likely it is to attract frivolous litigation, whether from a competitor or a visitor. A frivolous claim is not automatically a losing claim to defend; it still costs time and legal fees to resolve. A disclaimer will not stop someone from filing a claim, but it puts on record that the visitor was warned, which can weigh in the site owner's favor if the case is litigated.

When you post a disclaimer, you are telling visitors that you are not liable for what happens if they rely on your product or information. Because a visitor is in a legal relationship with the site the moment they use it, they generally keep the right to bring a claim if you omit a material fact, such as failing to warn that a drink is hot enough to cause burns.

Disclaimer language on most sites addresses points such as:

• Using the site does not create a legal or business relationship between the visitor and the site owner.
• The site is not responsible for the accuracy of information on third-party sites it links to.
• The site does not guarantee the completeness or accuracy of its own content.
• The site owner is not liable for losses caused by equipment failure or technical problems affecting the visitor's use of the site.

This is a starting point, not a complete list. A site that covers health, legal, or financial topics should add a professional-advice disclaimer for that specific content, covered further below.

What are the benefits of putting up a disclaimer?

The benefits of a disclaimer are twofold: it can reduce liability, and it can help you resolve or avoid nuisance lawsuits more efficiently.

If your website recommends or works with third-party contractors, you can face claims arising from the contractor's own failures. For example, a visitor might see a service advertised or recommended on your site; if the contractor performing the work fails to deliver or acts outside the agreed scope, the client may look to you as well as the contractor. A disclaimer stating that the site is not responsible for the performance of independent third-party contractors it recommends or advertises can help address this.

If you publish new content regularly, revisit your disclaimer and policies periodically so they stay consistent with what the site actually does. A privacy policy or cookie policy that no longer matches your site's real data practices can itself become a compliance problem; see the GDPR and cookie-consent section below.

Copyright disclaimers and DMCA safe harbor

A copyright disclaimer states who owns the site's content, how it may be used, and how a rights holder can report suspected infringement. If your site allows visitors to post content, such as comments, forum posts, or user uploads, a copyright disclaimer by itself does not shield you from liability for infringing material a visitor posts.

Registering an agent is the first step toward the safe harbor in Section 512 of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, and it is the step site owners most often miss. A site must designate an agent to receive copyright takedown notices, register that agent with the U.S. Copyright Office, and publish the agent's contact information where visitors can find it. A designated-agent registration expires three years after it is registered and must be renewed by amending or resubmitting it, which starts a new three-year period. Without a current registration, a site that hosts user-generated content risks losing safe-harbor protection and can be held directly liable for infringing material its users post.

Registration alone does not secure the safe harbor. Under 17 U.S.C. Section 512, a site that stores material at a user's direction must also meet the conditions in subsection (c)(1). It must lack actual knowledge that the material is infringing and lack awareness of facts or circumstances from which infringing activity is apparent, sometimes called red flag awareness, or else act expeditiously to remove or disable access to the material once it obtains that knowledge or awareness. It must not receive a financial benefit directly attributable to infringing activity that it has the right and ability to control, and it must respond expeditiously to remove or disable access to material identified in a properly submitted takedown notice.

Subsection (i) adds two further conditions that apply across the Section 512 safe harbors. The site must have adopted and reasonably implemented a policy providing for the termination, in appropriate circumstances, of subscribers and account holders who are repeat infringers, and must inform its users of that policy. It must also accommodate and not interfere with standard technical measures that copyright owners use to identify or protect their works. The Copyright Office notes that a service provider has no affirmative obligation to monitor its service looking for infringement, but a site that ignores the conditions above can still lose the safe harbor even with a current agent registration.

If you need to send or respond to a takedown notice, see our guide to filing a DMCA takedown for the notice-and-counter-notice process.

FTC disclosure rules for affiliate links and sponsored content

If your site includes affiliate links, accepts free products for review, or publishes sponsored posts, the FTC's Endorsement Guides (16 CFR Part 255) apply. Section 255.5 provides that where a connection exists between the endorser and the seller of the advertised product that might materially affect the weight or credibility of the endorsement, and the audience would not reasonably expect that connection, the connection must be disclosed clearly and conspicuously. The rule adds that a disclosure does not require the complete details of the connection, but it must clearly communicate the nature of the connection well enough for consumers to evaluate its significance.

The Guides define what clear and conspicuous means at 16 CFR 255.0(f). In a communication using an interactive electronic medium, such as a website or social media, the disclosure should be unavoidable. A visual disclosure should stand out from any accompanying text or other visual elements, through its size, contrast, location, and how long it appears, so that it is easily noticed, read, and understood, and it should appear in the visual portion of the communication where the representation that triggers it is visual. That standard is difficult to meet with a disclosure a reader reaches only by clicking through to a separate page.

A dedicated affiliate-disclosure page is still useful as a fuller explanation of how the site is monetized, but it does not substitute for the near-the-link disclosure the Guides describe for each individual affiliate link or sponsored mention.

What is the difference between a disclaimer and terms and conditions?

Terms and conditions, as the name suggests, are the rules or framework visitors must follow when using your website or service. A disclaimer, by contrast, limits your responsibility for your content, product, or service.

Do you need both a terms and conditions page and a disclaimer? Most sites do. A disclaimer limits your liability for the accuracy and consequences of your content. A terms and conditions page sets the contractual rules a visitor agrees to by using the site, such as acceptable use, account termination, and how disputes are resolved. Because they cover different legal ground, using both is more protective than relying on either alone.

Why do you need a terms and conditions page?

The terms and conditions page states clearly how visitors should use the site and what they may not do. A visitor who violates the terms can be denied further access. Like a disclaimer, a terms and conditions page helps protect against unnecessary disputes, though unlike a disclaimer, no single federal law requires every site to have one. It is still advisable if:

• Your site accepts user-generated content, or you want to protect the business from information visitors post.
• You want the page to show that a user was aware of, and agreed to, the site's rules.
• You want to define what counts as acceptable behavior on the site.

Comparing terms and conditions and a disclaimer

You do not need every item above; include what your website or blog actually needs. A licensed attorney can help you decide what applies to your specific site.

GDPR compliance, YouTube disclaimers, and privacy policies

GDPR, the General Data Protection Regulation, is the European Union's framework for data collection and processing. Article 3(2) extends it to a controller or processor not established in the Union where the processing relates to offering goods or services to people who are in the Union, whether or not payment is required, or to monitoring their behavior as far as that behavior takes place within the Union. A US-based site with EU visitors may therefore still need to comply with its notice and breach-reporting obligations. Points to keep in mind:

• You must tell users what data your site collects from them, consistent with your privacy policy.
• If your site experiences a personal data breach, GDPR Article 33 requires you to notify the relevant supervisory authority without undue delay and, where feasible, within 72 hours of becoming aware of it, unless the breach is unlikely to result in a risk to people's rights and freedoms.
• Under Article 34, you must also communicate the breach to the affected individuals themselves when it is likely to result in a high risk to their rights and freedoms.
• You must provide a way to contact a Data Protection Officer where GDPR requires you to appoint one.

The EU's ePrivacy rules, often called the Cookie Law, separately govern what a site may store on a visitor's device. Article 5(3) of Directive 2002/58/EC, as amended, allows storing information, or gaining access to information already stored, on a user's terminal equipment only where the user has given consent. It carves out technical storage or access whose sole purpose is carrying out a transmission, and access strictly necessary to provide a service the user has explicitly requested. Non-essential cookies fall outside those exceptions.

Why do you need a YouTube disclaimer?

If you post legal, medical, or financial advice on YouTube, feature copyrighted material such as music or clips, or want to make clear which portions of a video are original, you generally need a matching set of disclaimers: a liability disclaimer, a fair-use disclaimer where you are relying on that defense, and a copyright disclaimer describing how you handle rights to the material you use. These disclaimers do not by themselves authorize using someone else's copyrighted work. A fair-use disclaimer states your position, but a court, not the disclaimer, ultimately decides whether a specific use qualifies as fair use.

Keeping disclaimers current

Writing and maintaining disclaimers is an ongoing task, not a one-time project. Revisit your disclaimer, terms and conditions, and privacy policy whenever your site adds a new feature, such as user comments, affiliate links, or a new data collection point, since each of those can trigger its own disclosure requirement. Commercial policy-generator tools can help you draft a first version, but they cannot evaluate your site's specific legal risk.

This article provides general legal information about website disclaimers under US and EU law. It is not legal advice. Requirements vary by jurisdiction, by what your site actually does, and by changes in the underlying law, so consult a licensed attorney before relying on any disclaimer, terms and conditions page, or privacy policy for your own site.