Rights holders unite to shut up shop on user generated content

1st November 2007

In a Press Release dated 18th October it was announced by some of the world's largest media companies that they have united to establish a set of 'User Generated Content Principles' ("the Principles"). Their intention is to encourage the creation of original 'User Generated Content' ("UGC") online whilst protecting the rights of copyright holders.

The Principles, which others in the sector are encouraged to adopt, will require signatories to go far beyond the copyright protection requirements of the US Digital Millennium Copyright Act placing reliance on technical solutions, such as filters, and shifting the burden of policing from rights holders to websites and their users. They effectively require sites hosting UGC to automatically block content that matches copyrighted material submitted by copyright owners to a database.

The current signatories control a huge amount of audio visual content between them. They include the four big US TV networks: CBS, Disney (owner of ABC), NBC and Fox. In addition there are Viacom, Microsoft and MySpace as well as online video providers Veoh and DailyMotion. However, this isn't the whole industry regulating itself, and it is no great surprise that Google and it's subsidiary YouTube are absent from the list, along with Yahoo and many other UGC sites.

The Principles envisage the promotion of "content-rich, infringement-free services by continuing to cooperatively test new technologies and by collaboratively updating these principles as appropriate to keep current with evolving developments". However, as one would expect given the list of companies behind them, the guidelines are heavily weighted towards the interests of rights holders. User-generated content sites are told they should use "effective content identification technology" whether they have licensing or commercial arrangements in place with content owners or not.

It has previously been noted by many in the industry that reliance on filters for the purposes of blocking copyrighted content online is not practical as they fail to accommodate "fair use" (in the American copyright context), being unable to distinguish between blatant infringement and the legitimate use of sections of content for permitted uses such as parody or criticism. "Fair use" is not defined in the Principles. In addition, they only make provision for the blocking of material infringing copyright, with no reference made to content containing defamatory allegations or confidential/private information.

It may seem there is little reason for UGC sites to sign up. One of the few obligations of the content companies is that they should not sue a UGC company which has met the requisite conditions. However, this could be construed as an implied threat to sue those who do not adopt the Principles, and the wording does not rule out the possibility they'll take action against signatories. Rather surprisingly, the Principles contain a deadline requiring UGC companies to install the filtering equipment by the end of this calendar year so it seems apparent there is no time to waste. At least not in the opinion of the rights holders.

The Principles can be viewed here.