I’m a senior at my high school, and I created an UNOFFICIAL website in honor of the school’s tennis team (which I am on as well). The website is mostly for laughs, as it pokes fun at everyone (including myself) and includes harmless banter. Everyone has seen the website, and no one objects. They actually all glorify the website and publicize it. The website includes some vulgarity and some topics that may be deemed inappropriate for school.
In creating the website, I did include two secret pages (which are only accessible by 2 very small hidden buttons). One page has a motley group of images that are supposed to be shocking or scary (nothing too grotesque, just nuclear blasts, “The Shining” cover, Vietnam pictures, etc.). Another page is a tribute to a girl who graduated a couple years ago. She had done some work in the porn business, so I included some pictures of her work.
Anyway, could I get in trouble for making this website? I never used school computers when making the website, I made it completely on my own time at home.
Could I get in any trouble from the school?
(I would include a link, but it has the last names of everyone)
I don’t see a problem with the primary page.
The extra pages, however…
If the page is accessible by minors, there could be a serious problem with giving them access to adult material. You could also be violating copyright laws with whatever pictures you are showing.
This is a tough one. Even if the school isn’t legally allowed to make trouble for you, they may do so anyway. In my experience public school administrators have a tendency toward being petty tyrants. If they try to punish you for the site, you’d either have to take the punishment (whatever it is) or get a lawyer and fight with them, which could be more of a hassle than you want to go through.
My advice: for now, just keep it up until someone from the school notices it and orders you to take it down.
They are not hidden from the search engines unless you have robots.txt file that excludes them. Less scrupulous bots will also ignore your robots.txt file, so at some point these ‘hidden’ pages will be exposed to the world and then what will you do/see/think?
There are laws (in Australia) that govern the use of photographs regardless of whether they were taken in public or not, so be aware of what laws cover your situation with regards to the inclusion of photographs that do not have the express permission of those pictured.
Personally I would be very wary of doing something like this, unless I had the express permission of anyone whose photograph you are using.
I would also ensure that I was very clear that this site was not associated officially with the school and would stay away from using any images that are copyright by the school (or education department) or images that could generally infer that you are associated with the school (disclaimers notwidthstanding).
This is what would (potentially) get you in trouble with the school, regardless of whether you created the site on your own time/equipment. Are there pictures of you and your teammates in your uniforms? Are there pictures of you (the plural) at competitions, pictures that may have been printed in the school newspaper/yearbook/local paper? The school can argue that these sorts of pictures- even candid shots, if you’re in your uniforms- are the sole property of the school, and you are using the images without permission.
You can also get in trouble for the “mature” link. Put a page between the home page and the content page that has the standard disclaimer (“the following page contains material of an adult nature; if you are under the age of consent in your state, you are not allowed to continue…”).
As someone who is fully embroiled in a lawsuit right now that partially involves a personal website maintained on my own time/equipment, I would SERIOUSLY caution you against doing anything that has even the hint of impropriety. Some people simply don’t have a sense of humor, and if they’re in a position of power over you it can get really ugly.
At my school we got in deep trouble for photoshopping images of our teachers onto various images (my physics teacher looks just like gandalf btw). We didn’t use school computers, we took our own pictures of the teachers with their consent and we didn’t even distribute them.
Administrators are pretty much going to do whatever they want, regardless of whether its legal or not. They don’t expect a bunch of kids are going to take em to court.
Does the tennis team know about your “secret pages?” If so, skip the following paragraph.
If not, there is cause for concern. If they do like your site and mention it to friends and family (who may or may not support shocking, scary or pornographic material), said friends and family may stumble across the dicey content and call your teammates to task for it. In which case, your teammate will (1) call you to task for it, and (2) tell the rest of your teammates. Depending on how much flack he received based on your secret pages, he may pass that same amount of flack along to you. Does your coach know about the site? The secret stuff within the site? You know him better than I, what would his reaction be?
In either case, if the website was designed to honor your tennis team, of what relevance is the secret stuff? Please understand I have no objections to posting shocking, scary or pornographic stuff, but I don’t see the sense in incorporating it into the tennis site. Why not create a new site that contains your assorted interests? Given that you not only created secret pages as a part of the site, but also provided links to those pages (however “small” or “hidden”), it sounds to me (with admittedly little information) that you want to get caught.
So, yes. You can get in trouble, from your friends, your coach (and by proxy the school). Your risk isn’t of the legal nature, but the loss of trust of various people you probably care about. I strongly suggest you keep your shocking, scary and pornographic content, but post the pages on a completely different website.
I’m not that worried about copyright laws with the photos. As soon as we heard a girl from our school was on a porn site, a kid hacked it and distributed the photos (and video :)) across the school. Nearly every kid has some some kind of souvenir. Sure, that makes it even MORE illegal, but I don’t plan on bignaturals.com suing me over this.
My concern was solely with the school district. I discussed the matter with my crime/justice teacher, and he said the same thing most of you guys said. The site may be technically legal, but the school has a lot of weight and can say that the website “interferes with the learning environment.”
Thanks for all of your input. Because the website’s reach won’t exceed the school, I don’t think there’s much of a reason for concern. If I am confronted by the school, they’d hopefully ask that I remove the page rather than bombarding me with a lawsuit/punishment.
The purpose of the website is really just to get a few laughs. It’s really not meant to be promotional or official. It’s more to show our friendship and fun-loving nature.
