Out-Law / Your Daily Need-To-Know
A set of copyright principles for user-generated content has been published by internet and media giants including Microsoft, MySpace, Viacom, CBS and Disney. YouTube has rejected the project, though, describing such mandates as "generally a bad idea."
The set of principles, published yesterday, aim "to enable the continued growth and development of user-generated content online and respect the intellectual property of content owners," according to a statement from the backers.
They state that sites hosting user-generated content (UGC) must have use effective filtering technology. The principles cite "the elimination of infringing content on UGC Services" as the first of their objectives. They provide that infringing uploads must be blocked before they are made available to the public.
Operators must also identify and remove links to "sites that are clearly dedicated to, and predominantly used for, the dissemination of infringing content or the facilitation of such dissemination."
On fair use, the principles state: "When sending notices and making claims of infringement, Copyright Owners should accommodate fair use."
Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer said: "The cross-industry dialogue that resulted in these principles is an important step forward in establishing the internet as a great platform for video content – a platform that allows services to innovate and preserves incentives for all creators, big and small, by respecting copyright."
However, the market-leading video-sharing site has decided not to support the plan.
YouTube Director of Engineering Jeremy Doig said: "We appreciate ideas from the various media companies on effective content identification technologies. We're glad that they recognise the need to cooperate on these issues, and we'll keep working with them to refine our industry-leading tools."
A YouTube spokesman told OUT-LAW that YouTube talked with Disney "and ultimately decided to keep leading by example, rather than detail practices for the entire industry."
"We support the goal of collaboration between UGC video hosting services and rights owners to reduce infringing content posted by users," he said. "But industry-wide technology mandates are generally a bad idea. This industry is still young and we believe that marketplace innovation can lead to creative solutions we can't even begin to imagine today."
