As 'cute' as this is please find a different API to use or at least find a way to attribute where you are _stealing_ the images from and ensure that the owners of the images are happy with you using the images.
Just because an image is on the internet does not mean you can reproduce it. I ran a couple of words I knew return copyrighted images and sure enough they come up.
Very true. I planned to introduce a page for every image to attribute the source in the near future. And I would delete them upon the owner's request. (just like youtube video)
I'm sorry but this is not good enough. You should try to do better than "what Youtube does".
Delete upon owner request (a la DMCA) is a legal maneuver. You should be able to parse out if an image is licensed as Creative Commons or public domain and show only those pictures. Else assume all rights reserved.
Not to pick on your project but it's time that people try to do better than take the easiest path of show all images (without attribution) because it was the most convenient thing to do.
(If you are going to do the delete on owner request thing, at least consider providing an immediate link to delete without 1) have to mail a paper request in, 2) having to sign in or 3) some other onerous route to delete)
If you are not going to validate that you have the rights to display the image the minimum thing you can do is add attribution to every page the image is displayed. Not a separate page.
If it linked to the source of the image, wouldn't it just be a minimalist search engine? Surely google doesn't individually license every image that shows up in image search.
I don't know what you think the site is doing but that is exactly what it is. It didn't curate the images, people didn't upload the images. It searched for an image that matched your word. No google didn't licence the image, but it only displays small thumbnails with a link to where it found the image. This is displaying the full size image with no link to where it found the image.
Just because the image is copyrighted doesn't mean you are violating copyright law by displaying it. It would be quite nice of you to display a link to the site that Google found the image on - but if this is a non-commercial site, you have a very good fair use claim. If you really wanted to be in the clear, you could change your image search default to show "images labeled for reuse." Either way, don't be cowed by copyright maximalists.
Just because an image is on the internet does not mean you can reproduce it. I ran a couple of words I knew return copyrighted images and sure enough they come up.