User-generated content
Encyclopedia
User generated content (UGC) covers a range of media content available in a range of modern communications technologies. It entered mainstream
usage during 2005 having arisen in web publishing and new media
content production circles. Its use for a wide range of applications, including problem processing, news
, gossip
and research
, reflects the expansion of media production through new technologies that are accessible and affordable to the general public. All digital media technologies are included, such as question-answer databases, digital video
, blogging, podcasting
, forums, review-sites, social networking, mobile phone photography
and wiki
s. In addition to these technologies, user generated content may also employ a combination of open source
, free software
, and flexible licensing or related agreements to further reduce the barriers to collaboration
, skill-building
and discovery
.
Sometimes UGC can constitute only a portion of a website. For example on Amazon.com
the majority of content is prepared by administrators
, but numerous user reviews of the products being sold are submitted by regular users of the site.
Often UGC is partially or totally monitored by website administrators to avoid offensive content or language, copyright infringement issues, or simply to determine if the content posted is relevant to the site's general theme.
However, there has often been little or no charge for uploading user generated content. As a result, the world's data centers are now replete with exabytes of UGC that, in addition to creating a corporate asset, may also contain data that can be regarded as a liability.
User generated content has also been characterized as 'Conversational Media'
, as opposed to the 'Packaged Goods Media' of the past century
. The former is a two-way process in contrast to the one-way distribution of the latter. Conversational or two-way media is a key characteristic of so-called Web 2.0
which encourages the publishing of one's own content and commenting on other people's.
The role of the passive audience therefore has shifted since the birth of New Media, and an ever-growing number of participatory users are taking advantage of the interactive opportunities, especially on the Internet to create independent content. Grassroots experimentation then generated an innovation in sounds, artists, techniques and associations with audiences which then are being used in mainstream media. The active, participatory and creative audience is prevailing today with relatively accessible media, tools and applications, and its culture is in turn affecting mass media corporations and global audiences.
The OECD has defined three central schools for UGC :
Mere copy & paste or a link
could also be seen as user generated self-expression. The action of linking to a work or copying a work could in itself motivate the creator, express the taste of the person linking or copying. Digg.com, Stumbleupon.com, and leaptag.com are good examples of where such linkage to work happens. The culmination of such linkages could very well identify the tastes of a person in the community and make that person unique
and the Buncefield oil depot fire
, the team was made permanent and was expanded, reflecting the arrival in the mainstream of the 'citizen journalist'. After the Buncefield disaster
the BBC received over 5,000 photos from viewers. The BBC does not normally pay for content generated by its viewers.
In 2006 CNN
launched CNN iReport, a project designed to bring user generated news content to CNN. Its rival Fox News Channel
launched its project to bring in user-generated news, similarly titled "uReport". This was typical of major television news organisations in 2005-2006, who realised, particularly in the wake of the 7th July bombings, that citizen journalism
could now become a significant part of broadcast news. Sky News
, for example, regularly solicits for photographs and video from its viewers.
User generated content was featured in Time magazine's 2006 Person of the Year
, in which the person of the year was "you", meaning all of the people who contribute to user generated media such as YouTube and Wikipedia.
Realizing the demand for UGC is more about creating a “playing field” for the visitors rather than creating material for them to consume. A parallel development can be seen in the video game industry, where games such as World of Warcraft, The Sims and Second Life give the player a large amount of freedom so that essential parts of the games are actually built by the players themselves.
Player generated content is common in tabletop role playing games where a game master creates a narrative or adventure for the other players to encounter. Interfaces for player generated content has been attempted in various PC games such as Neverwinter Nights
and Counterstrike
with some success, though the editors to create usable levels are often difficult for the average user.
LittleBigPlanet
provided one of the biggest breakthroughs by delivering level design tools as a focal feature of the game that were fast and approachable. With content shared amongst the community in a centralized resource, a large amount of creations were designed and shared by players seamlessly within the game itself. A streamlined communication system further encouraged content creation by making distribution and playing with friends easy. So integrated was the experience that players could use custom shared objects in their own levels or even design levels collaboratively with up to three other players simultaneously.
Under Siege (2011 video game) places "special emphasis" on user-generated content and in-game battles, according to the official website.
Some commentators assert that the term "user" implies an illusory or unproductive distinction between different kinds of "publishers", with the term "users" exclusively used to characterize publishers who operate on a much smaller scale than traditional mass-media outlets or who operate for free.
Such classification is said to perpetuate an unfair distinction that some argue is diminishing because of the prevalence and affordability of the means of production and publication. A better response might be to offer optional expressions that better capture the spirit and nature of such work, such as EGC, Entrepreneurial Generated Content (see external reference below).
Another concern is often raised relating to the privacy of personal information. Naive and beginning users may fail to make the distinction between public and private/personal information, sharing data that could make them vulnerable to harm ranging from financial to physical. Further, the social networking sites sometimes reveal personal information by default, either requiring the users to turn off viewing or sometimes not providing a way to hide or cancel information deemed personal by many. Public criticism has helped to correct the worst of such situations.
Sometimes creative works made by individuals are lost because there are limited or no ways to precisely preserve creations when a UGC Web site service closes down. One example of such loss is the closing of the Disney massively multiplayer online game
"VMK". VMK, like most games, has items that are traded from user to user. Many of these items are rare within the game. Users are able to use these items to create their own rooms, avatars and pin lanyard. This site shut down at 10 PM CDT on May 21, 2008. There are ways to preserve the essence, if not the entirety of such work through the users copying text and media to applications on their personal computers or recording live action or animated scenes using screen capture software, and then uploading elsewhere. Long before the Web, creative works were simply lost or went out of publication and disappeared from history unless individuals found ways to keep them in personal collections.
Copyright Dilemma: Imagine a video of you having fun with your friends in the popular rhythms of Michael Jackson
or Madonna
, for instance. A good example of possible copyright infringement occurs when people post such material into online services like YouTube
for everyone to see. Therefore, UGC can consist of partly or completely copyright protected material and it can be distributed online without a permission from the original right holder.
Internet Service Providers Liability: In the context of third party copyright violations, it is important to consider the liability issues between the content provider and the Internet service provider (ISP). In the legal literacy scholars have established two distinct models of liability as regards to ISP. These can be divided into "publishing information doctrine" and "storing information doctrine". According to the former view, ISP controls or at least has the ability to control the content published by using their services. In other words, ISP acts as a host and has the editorial control to take down and monitor content posted online. In order to establish secondary liability it is pivotal to evaluate the level of control practiced by the ISP. The latter view, on the other hand, applies to situations in where ISP acts as a mere host provider lacking any editorial role to the content posted online. Even though ISP might have awareness of the content run by using their services, it has no possibility to monitor or modify information.
In general, there are some differences in legislation between the US approach on ISP liability and the EU approach. In the US, the ISP liability is regulated under the DMCA which deals only with copyright issues. Section 512 stipulates so-called Safe Harbor
provisions under which ISP can in certain detailed conditions escape liability. For example, ISP's are required to adopt a special take down policy, which allows individuals to respond to alleged copyright violations. The EU approach is horizontal by nature which means that civil and criminal liability issues are addressed under the Directive 2000/31/EC of the E-Commerce. Sections 4 deals with liability of the ISP while conducting "mere conduit" services, caching and web hosting services.
Content Providers Liability: The question of direct liability of the content provider might arise when uploading and downloading
material in the Internet. Prior to UGC, direct liability issues have been tackled in so-called file sharing
cases. This technology, much like in UGC, allows unauthorized reproduction and dissemination of information and the fundamental question of liability is determined according to copyright exceptions.
Copyright Exceptions: In certain cases use of copyright protected material can be allowed without a permission from the original right holder. In the US, the notion of fair use
doctrine is used to determine whether the use of copyright protected material is allowed or not. Within this assessment the courts must focus on following list of non-exhaustive factors:
In the EU level, the possibility to allow copyright exceptions is tackled by the article 5 of the so-called Copyright Directive
, also known as the Information Society Directive. Article 5 of the Copyright Directive stipulates an exhaustive list of optional defenses which are subjected to the classical Berne three-step test
. The list of optional defenses is conditional to members states implementation
but these include use of copyright protected material for private use, education purposes, quotations and parody among others.
In general, unauthorized use of copyright protected material in the context of UGC might be allowed if it falls under the fair use doctrine or can be justified according to the list set out in the Copyright Directive. The fundamental difference between the US and the EU system is the more lenient case-by-case assessment practiced by US courts in relation to a more rigid system in the EU level.
Mainstream
Mainstream is, generally, the common current thought of the majority. However, the mainstream is far from cohesive; rather the concept is often considered a cultural construct....
usage during 2005 having arisen in web publishing and new media
New media
New media is a broad term in media studies that emerged in the latter part of the 20th century. For example, new media holds out a possibility of on-demand access to content any time, anywhere, on any digital device, as well as interactive user feedback, creative participation and community...
content production circles. Its use for a wide range of applications, including problem processing, news
News
News is the communication of selected information on current events which is presented by print, broadcast, Internet, or word of mouth to a third party or mass audience.- Etymology :...
, gossip
Gossip
Gossip is idle talk or rumour, especially about the personal or private affairs of others, It is one of the oldest and most common means of sharing facts and views, but also has a reputation for the introduction of errors and variations into the information transmitted...
and research
Research
Research can be defined as the scientific search for knowledge, or as any systematic investigation, to establish novel facts, solve new or existing problems, prove new ideas, or develop new theories, usually using a scientific method...
, reflects the expansion of media production through new technologies that are accessible and affordable to the general public. All digital media technologies are included, such as question-answer databases, digital video
Digital video
Digital video is a type of digital recording system that works by using a digital rather than an analog video signal.The terms camera, video camera, and camcorder are used interchangeably in this article.- History :...
, blogging, podcasting
Podcasting
A podcast is a series of digital media files that are released episodically and often downloaded through web syndication...
, forums, review-sites, social networking, mobile phone photography
Camera phone
A camera phone is a mobile phone which is able to capture still photographs . Since early in the 21st century the majority of mobile phones in use are camera phones....
and wiki
Wiki
A wiki is a website that allows the creation and editing of any number of interlinked web pages via a web browser using a simplified markup language or a WYSIWYG text editor. Wikis are typically powered by wiki software and are often used collaboratively by multiple users. Examples include...
s. In addition to these technologies, user generated content may also employ a combination of open source
Open source
The term open source describes practices in production and development that promote access to the end product's source materials. Some consider open source a philosophy, others consider it a pragmatic methodology...
, free software
Free software
Free software, software libre or libre software is software that can be used, studied, and modified without restriction, and which can be copied and redistributed in modified or unmodified form either without restriction, or with restrictions that only ensure that further recipients can also do...
, and flexible licensing or related agreements to further reduce the barriers to collaboration
Collaboration
Collaboration is working together to achieve a goal. It is a recursive process where two or more people or organizations work together to realize shared goals, — for example, an intriguing endeavor that is creative in nature—by sharing...
, skill-building
Skill
A skill is the learned capacity to carry out pre-determined results often with the minimum outlay of time, energy, or both. Skills can often be divided into domain-general and domain-specific skills...
and discovery
Discovery (observation)
Discovery is the act of detecting something new, or something "old" that had been unknown. With reference to science and academic disciplines, discovery is the observation of new phenomena, new actions, or new events and providing new reasoning to explain the knowledge gathered through such...
.
Sometimes UGC can constitute only a portion of a website. For example on Amazon.com
Amazon.com
Amazon.com, Inc. is a multinational electronic commerce company headquartered in Seattle, Washington, United States. It is the world's largest online retailer. Amazon has separate websites for the following countries: United States, Canada, United Kingdom, Germany, France, Italy, Spain, Japan, and...
the majority of content is prepared by administrators
System administrator
A system administrator, IT systems administrator, systems administrator, or sysadmin is a person employed to maintain and operate a computer system and/or network...
, but numerous user reviews of the products being sold are submitted by regular users of the site.
Often UGC is partially or totally monitored by website administrators to avoid offensive content or language, copyright infringement issues, or simply to determine if the content posted is relevant to the site's general theme.
However, there has often been little or no charge for uploading user generated content. As a result, the world's data centers are now replete with exabytes of UGC that, in addition to creating a corporate asset, may also contain data that can be regarded as a liability.
General requirements
The advent of user-generated content marked a shift among media organizations from creating online content to providing facilities for amateurs to publish their own content.User generated content has also been characterized as 'Conversational Media'
Citizen media
The term citizen media refers to forms of content produced by private citizens who are otherwise not professional journalists. Citizen journalism, participatory media and democratic media are related principles.-Principles of citizen media:...
, as opposed to the 'Packaged Goods Media' of the past century
Mass media
Mass media refers collectively to all media technologies which are intended to reach a large audience via mass communication. Broadcast media transmit their information electronically and comprise of television, film and radio, movies, CDs, DVDs and some other gadgets like cameras or video consoles...
. The former is a two-way process in contrast to the one-way distribution of the latter. Conversational or two-way media is a key characteristic of so-called Web 2.0
Web 2.0
The term Web 2.0 is associated with web applications that facilitate participatory information sharing, interoperability, user-centered design, and collaboration on the World Wide Web...
which encourages the publishing of one's own content and commenting on other people's.
The role of the passive audience therefore has shifted since the birth of New Media, and an ever-growing number of participatory users are taking advantage of the interactive opportunities, especially on the Internet to create independent content. Grassroots experimentation then generated an innovation in sounds, artists, techniques and associations with audiences which then are being used in mainstream media. The active, participatory and creative audience is prevailing today with relatively accessible media, tools and applications, and its culture is in turn affecting mass media corporations and global audiences.
The OECD has defined three central schools for UGC :
- Publication requirement: While UGC could be made by a user and never published online or elsewhere, we focus here on the work that is published in some context, be it on a publicly accessible website or on a page on a social networking site only accessible to a select group of people (e.g., fellow university students). This is a useful way to exclude email, two-way instant messages and the like.
- Creative effort: of creative effort was put into creating the work or adapting existing works to construct a new one; i.e. users must add their own value to the work. UGC often also has a collaborative element to it, as is the case with websites which users can edit collaboratively. For example, merely copying a portion of a television show and posting it to an online video website (an activity frequently seen on the UGC sites) would not be considered UGC. If a user uploads his/her photographs, however, expresses his/her thoughts in a blog, or creates a new music video, this could be considered UGC. Yet the minimum amount of creative effort is hard to define and depends on the context.
- Creation outside of professional routines and practices: User generated content is generally created outside of professional routines and practices. It often does not have an institutional or a commercial market context. In extreme cases, UGC may be produced by non-professionals without the expectation of profit or remuneration. Motivating factors include: connecting with peers, achieving a certain level of fame, notoriety, or prestige, and the desire to express oneself.
Mere copy & paste or a link
Hyperlink
In computing, a hyperlink is a reference to data that the reader can directly follow, or that is followed automatically. A hyperlink points to a whole document or to a specific element within a document. Hypertext is text with hyperlinks...
could also be seen as user generated self-expression. The action of linking to a work or copying a work could in itself motivate the creator, express the taste of the person linking or copying. Digg.com, Stumbleupon.com, and leaptag.com are good examples of where such linkage to work happens. The culmination of such linkages could very well identify the tastes of a person in the community and make that person unique
Adoption and recognition by mass media
The British Broadcasting Corporation set up a user generated content team as a pilot in April 2005 with 3 staff. In the wake of the 7 July 2005 London bombings7 July 2005 London bombings
The 7 July 2005 London bombings were a series of co-ordinated suicide attacks in the United Kingdom, targeting civilians using London's public transport system during the morning rush hour....
and the Buncefield oil depot fire
2005 Hertfordshire Oil Storage Terminal fire
The Buncefield fire was a major conflagration caused by a series of explosions on 11 December 2005 at the Hertfordshire Oil Storage Terminal, an oil storage facility located near the M1 motorway by Hemel Hempstead in Hertfordshire, England. The terminal was the fifth largest oil-products...
, the team was made permanent and was expanded, reflecting the arrival in the mainstream of the 'citizen journalist'. After the Buncefield disaster
2005 Hertfordshire Oil Storage Terminal fire
The Buncefield fire was a major conflagration caused by a series of explosions on 11 December 2005 at the Hertfordshire Oil Storage Terminal, an oil storage facility located near the M1 motorway by Hemel Hempstead in Hertfordshire, England. The terminal was the fifth largest oil-products...
the BBC received over 5,000 photos from viewers. The BBC does not normally pay for content generated by its viewers.
In 2006 CNN
CNN
Cable News Network is a U.S. cable news channel founded in 1980 by Ted Turner. Upon its launch, CNN was the first channel to provide 24-hour television news coverage, and the first all-news television channel in the United States...
launched CNN iReport, a project designed to bring user generated news content to CNN. Its rival Fox News Channel
Fox News Channel
Fox News Channel , often called Fox News, is a cable and satellite television news channel owned by the Fox Entertainment Group, a subsidiary of News Corporation...
launched its project to bring in user-generated news, similarly titled "uReport". This was typical of major television news organisations in 2005-2006, who realised, particularly in the wake of the 7th July bombings, that citizen journalism
Citizen journalism
Citizen journalism is the concept of members of the public "playing an active role in the process of collecting, reporting, analyzing and disseminating news and information," according to the seminal 2003 report We Media: How Audiences are Shaping the Future of News and Information...
could now become a significant part of broadcast news. Sky News
Sky News
Sky News is a 24-hour British and international satellite television news broadcaster with an emphasis on UK and international news stories.The service places emphasis on rolling news, including the latest breaking news. Sky News also hosts localised versions of the channel in Australia and in New...
, for example, regularly solicits for photographs and video from its viewers.
User generated content was featured in Time magazine's 2006 Person of the Year
Person of the Year
Person of the Year is an annual issue of the United States newsmagazine Time that features and profiles a person, couple, group, idea, place, or machine that "for better or for worse, ...has done the most to influence the events of the year."- History :The tradition of selecting a Man of the Year...
, in which the person of the year was "you", meaning all of the people who contribute to user generated media such as YouTube and Wikipedia.
Motivation and incentives
While the benefit derived from user generated content for the content host is clear, the benefit to the contributor is less direct. There are various theories behind the motivation for contributing user generated content, ranging from altruistic http://www.marketingeconomist.com/2011/06/pure-altruism-101/, to social, to materialistic. Due to the high value of user generated content, many sites use incentives to encourage their generation. These incentives can be generally categorized into implicit incentives and explicit incentives.- Implicit incentives: These incentives are not based on anything tangible. Social incentives are the most common form of implicit incentives. These incentives allow the user to feel good as an active member of the community. These can include relationship between users, such as FacebookFacebookFacebook is a social networking service and website launched in February 2004, operated and privately owned by Facebook, Inc. , Facebook has more than 800 million active users. Users must register before using the site, after which they may create a personal profile, add other users as...
’s friends, or TwitterTwitterTwitter is an online social networking and microblogging service that enables its users to send and read text-based posts of up to 140 characters, informally known as "tweets".Twitter was created in March 2006 by Jack Dorsey and launched that July...
’s followers. Social incentives also include the ability to connect users with others, as seen on the sites already mentioned as well as sites like YouTube or Look at that Baby, which allow users to share media from their lives with others. Other common social incentives are status, badges or levels within the site, something a user earns when they reach a certain level of participation which may or may not come with additional privileges. Yahoo! AnswersYahoo! AnswersYahoo! Answers is a community-driven question-and-answer site or a knowledge market launched by Yahoo! on June 28, 2005 that allows users to both submit questions to be answered and answer questions asked by other users...
is an example of this type of social incentive. Social incentives cost the host site very little and can catalyze vital growth; however, their very nature requires a sizable existing community before it can function. - Explicit incentives: These incentives refer to tangible rewards. Examples include financial payment, entry into a contest, a voucher, a coupon, or frequent traveler miles. Direct explicit incentives are easily understandable by most and have immediate value regardless of the community size; sites such as the Canadian shopping platform WishabiWishabiWishabi is a Canadian online shopping platform that is owned and maintained by the Wishabi corporation. Wishabi's mission is "to give Canadians the best tools to make informed shopping decisions"....
and Amazon Mechanical TurkAmazon Mechanical TurkThe Amazon Mechanical Turk is a crowdsourcing Internet marketplace that enables computer programmers to co-ordinate the use of human intelligence to perform tasks that computers are unable to do yet. It is one of the suites of Amazon Web Services...
both use this type of financial incentive in slightly different ways to encourage user participation. The drawback to explicit incentives is that they may cause the user to be subject to the overjustification effect, eventually believing the only reason for the participating is for the explicit incentive. This reduces the influence of the other form of social or altruistic motivation, making it increasingly costly for the content host to retain long-term contributors.
Different types of user generated content
- Discussion boards
- Blogs
- WikiWikiA wiki is a website that allows the creation and editing of any number of interlinked web pages via a web browser using a simplified markup language or a WYSIWYG text editor. Wikis are typically powered by wiki software and are often used collaboratively by multiple users. Examples include...
s - Social networking sites
- AdvertisingAdvertisingAdvertising is a form of communication used to persuade an audience to take some action with respect to products, ideas, or services. Most commonly, the desired result is to drive consumer behavior with respect to a commercial offering, although political and ideological advertising is also common...
- Fanfiction
- News Sites
- Trip planners
- Memories
- Mobile Photos & Videos
- Customer review siteReview siteA review site is a website on which reviews can be posted about people, businesses, products, or services. These sites may use Web 2.0 techniques to gather reviews from site users or may employ professional writers to author reviews on the topic of concern for the site...
s - Audio
- Video games
- Maps and location systems
New business models
The media companies of today are starting to realize that the users themselves can create plenty of material that is interesting to a broader audience and adjust their business models accordingly. Many young companies in the media industry, such as YouTube and Facebook, have foreseen the increasing demand of UGC, whereas the established, traditional media companies have taken longer to exploit these kinds of opportunities.Realizing the demand for UGC is more about creating a “playing field” for the visitors rather than creating material for them to consume. A parallel development can be seen in the video game industry, where games such as World of Warcraft, The Sims and Second Life give the player a large amount of freedom so that essential parts of the games are actually built by the players themselves.
Player generated content
Player generated content is the concept of video game content being created by the players of the game, as opposed to being created by a game's publisher or author.Player generated content is common in tabletop role playing games where a game master creates a narrative or adventure for the other players to encounter. Interfaces for player generated content has been attempted in various PC games such as Neverwinter Nights
Neverwinter Nights
Neverwinter Nights , produced by BioWare and published by Infogrames , is a third-person perspective computer role-playing game that is based on third edition Dungeons & Dragons and Forgotten Realms rules. It was originally to be published by Interplay Entertainment, but the publisher's financial...
and Counterstrike
Counterstrike
Counterstrike may refer to:* Counterattack, a defensive military tactic.* Counterstrike * Counterstrike , a 1969 BBC science-fiction series* Counterstrike...
with some success, though the editors to create usable levels are often difficult for the average user.
LittleBigPlanet
LittleBigPlanet
LittleBigPlanet, commonly abbreviated LBP, is a puzzle platformer video game, based on user-generated content, for the PlayStation 3 first announced on 7 March 2007, by Phil Harrison at the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco, California...
provided one of the biggest breakthroughs by delivering level design tools as a focal feature of the game that were fast and approachable. With content shared amongst the community in a centralized resource, a large amount of creations were designed and shared by players seamlessly within the game itself. A streamlined communication system further encouraged content creation by making distribution and playing with friends easy. So integrated was the experience that players could use custom shared objects in their own levels or even design levels collaboratively with up to three other players simultaneously.
Under Siege (2011 video game) places "special emphasis" on user-generated content and in-game battles, according to the official website.
Criticism
The term "user-generated content" has received some criticism. This begins from the top of this article which needs a definition of the term. The criticism to date has addressed issues of fairness, quality, privacy, the sustainable availability of creative work and effort among legal issues namely related to intellectual property rights such as copyrights etc.Some commentators assert that the term "user" implies an illusory or unproductive distinction between different kinds of "publishers", with the term "users" exclusively used to characterize publishers who operate on a much smaller scale than traditional mass-media outlets or who operate for free.
Such classification is said to perpetuate an unfair distinction that some argue is diminishing because of the prevalence and affordability of the means of production and publication. A better response might be to offer optional expressions that better capture the spirit and nature of such work, such as EGC, Entrepreneurial Generated Content (see external reference below).
Another concern is often raised relating to the privacy of personal information. Naive and beginning users may fail to make the distinction between public and private/personal information, sharing data that could make them vulnerable to harm ranging from financial to physical. Further, the social networking sites sometimes reveal personal information by default, either requiring the users to turn off viewing or sometimes not providing a way to hide or cancel information deemed personal by many. Public criticism has helped to correct the worst of such situations.
Sometimes creative works made by individuals are lost because there are limited or no ways to precisely preserve creations when a UGC Web site service closes down. One example of such loss is the closing of the Disney massively multiplayer online game
Massively multiplayer online game
A massively multiplayer online game is a multiplayer video game which is capable of supporting hundreds or thousands of players simultaneously. By necessity, they are played on the Internet, and usually feature at least one persistent world. They are, however, not necessarily games played on...
"VMK". VMK, like most games, has items that are traded from user to user. Many of these items are rare within the game. Users are able to use these items to create their own rooms, avatars and pin lanyard. This site shut down at 10 PM CDT on May 21, 2008. There are ways to preserve the essence, if not the entirety of such work through the users copying text and media to applications on their personal computers or recording live action or animated scenes using screen capture software, and then uploading elsewhere. Long before the Web, creative works were simply lost or went out of publication and disappeared from history unless individuals found ways to keep them in personal collections.
Legal problems related to UGC
Liability Of Websites That Allow UGC: Websites are generally immune under U.S. law from liability if user generated content is defamatory, deceptive or otherwise harmful. The website is immune even if it knows that the third-party content is harmful and refuses to take it down. An exception to this general rule may exist if a website promises to take down the content and then fails to do so.Copyright Dilemma: Imagine a video of you having fun with your friends in the popular rhythms of Michael Jackson
Michael Jackson
Michael Joseph Jackson was an American recording artist, entertainer, and businessman. Referred to as the King of Pop, or by his initials MJ, Jackson is recognized as the most successful entertainer of all time by Guinness World Records...
or Madonna
Madonna (entertainer)
Madonna is an American singer-songwriter, actress and entrepreneur. Born in Bay City, Michigan, she moved to New York City in 1977 to pursue a career in modern dance. After performing in the music groups Breakfast Club and Emmy, she released her debut album in 1983...
, for instance. A good example of possible copyright infringement occurs when people post such material into online services like YouTube
YouTube
YouTube is a video-sharing website, created by three former PayPal employees in February 2005, on which users can upload, view and share videos....
for everyone to see. Therefore, UGC can consist of partly or completely copyright protected material and it can be distributed online without a permission from the original right holder.
Internet Service Providers Liability: In the context of third party copyright violations, it is important to consider the liability issues between the content provider and the Internet service provider (ISP). In the legal literacy scholars have established two distinct models of liability as regards to ISP. These can be divided into "publishing information doctrine" and "storing information doctrine". According to the former view, ISP controls or at least has the ability to control the content published by using their services. In other words, ISP acts as a host and has the editorial control to take down and monitor content posted online. In order to establish secondary liability it is pivotal to evaluate the level of control practiced by the ISP. The latter view, on the other hand, applies to situations in where ISP acts as a mere host provider lacking any editorial role to the content posted online. Even though ISP might have awareness of the content run by using their services, it has no possibility to monitor or modify information.
In general, there are some differences in legislation between the US approach on ISP liability and the EU approach. In the US, the ISP liability is regulated under the DMCA which deals only with copyright issues. Section 512 stipulates so-called Safe Harbor
Safe harbor
The term safe harbor has several special usages, in an analogy with its literal meaning, that of a harbor or haven which provides safety from weather or attack.-Legal definition:...
provisions under which ISP can in certain detailed conditions escape liability. For example, ISP's are required to adopt a special take down policy, which allows individuals to respond to alleged copyright violations. The EU approach is horizontal by nature which means that civil and criminal liability issues are addressed under the Directive 2000/31/EC of the E-Commerce. Sections 4 deals with liability of the ISP while conducting "mere conduit" services, caching and web hosting services.
Content Providers Liability: The question of direct liability of the content provider might arise when uploading and downloading
Uploading and downloading
In computer networks, to download means to receive data to a local system from a remote system, or to initiate such a data transfer. Examples of a remote system from which a download might be performed include a webserver, FTP server, email server, or other similar systems...
material in the Internet. Prior to UGC, direct liability issues have been tackled in so-called file sharing
File sharing
File sharing is the practice of distributing or providing access to digitally stored information, such as computer programs, multimedia , documents, or electronic books. It may be implemented through a variety of ways...
cases. This technology, much like in UGC, allows unauthorized reproduction and dissemination of information and the fundamental question of liability is determined according to copyright exceptions.
Copyright Exceptions: In certain cases use of copyright protected material can be allowed without a permission from the original right holder. In the US, the notion of fair use
Fair use
Fair use is a limitation and exception to the exclusive right granted by copyright law to the author of a creative work. In United States copyright law, fair use is a doctrine that permits limited use of copyrighted material without acquiring permission from the rights holders...
doctrine is used to determine whether the use of copyright protected material is allowed or not. Within this assessment the courts must focus on following list of non-exhaustive factors:
- The purpose and character of the use, including whether such use is of commercial nature or is for nonprofit educational purposes;
- The nature of the copyrighted work;
- The amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole; and
- The effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work.
In the EU level, the possibility to allow copyright exceptions is tackled by the article 5 of the so-called Copyright Directive
Copyright Directive
The Copyright Directive , is a directive of the European Union enacted to implement the WIPO...
, also known as the Information Society Directive. Article 5 of the Copyright Directive stipulates an exhaustive list of optional defenses which are subjected to the classical Berne three-step test
Berne three-step test
The Berne three-step test is a clause that is included in several international treaties on intellectual property. It imposes on signatories to the treaties constraints on the possible limitations and exceptions to exclusive rights under national copyright laws.- Berne Convention :The three-step...
. The list of optional defenses is conditional to members states implementation
Implementation
Implementation is the realization of an application, or execution of a plan, idea, model, design, specification, standard, algorithm, or policy.-Computer Science:...
but these include use of copyright protected material for private use, education purposes, quotations and parody among others.
In general, unauthorized use of copyright protected material in the context of UGC might be allowed if it falls under the fair use doctrine or can be justified according to the list set out in the Copyright Directive. The fundamental difference between the US and the EU system is the more lenient case-by-case assessment practiced by US courts in relation to a more rigid system in the EU level.
See also
- BlogBlogA blog is a type of website or part of a website supposed to be updated with new content from time to time. Blogs are usually maintained by an individual with regular entries of commentary, descriptions of events, or other material such as graphics or video. Entries are commonly displayed in...
- BuzzwordBuzzwordA buzzword is a term of art, salesmanship, politics, or technical jargon that is used in the media and wider society outside of its originally narrow technical context....
- Carr-Benkler wagerCarr-Benkler wagerThe Carr–Benkler wager is between Yochai Benkler and Nicholas Carr about whether the most influential sites on the Internet will be peer-produced or price-incentivized systems.-History:...
- Citizen journalismCitizen journalismCitizen journalism is the concept of members of the public "playing an active role in the process of collecting, reporting, analyzing and disseminating news and information," according to the seminal 2003 report We Media: How Audiences are Shaping the Future of News and Information...
- Collective intelligenceCollective intelligenceCollective intelligence is a shared or group intelligence that emerges from the collaboration and competition of many individuals and appears in consensus decision making in bacteria, animals, humans and computer networks....
- Communal marketingCommunal marketingCommunal marketing refers to a marketing practice that incorporates public involvement in the development of an advertising/marketing campaign. A "communal advertising" campaign invites consumers to share their ideas or express their articulation of what the brand means to them through their own...
- Consumer generated marketing
- Creative CommonsCreative CommonsCreative Commons is a non-profit organization headquartered in Mountain View, California, United States devoted to expanding the range of creative works available for others to build upon legally and to share. The organization has released several copyright-licenses known as Creative Commons...
- CrowdsourcingCrowdsourcingCrowdsourcing is the act of sourcing tasks traditionally performed by specific individuals to a group of people or community through an open call....
- Customer engagementCustomer engagementCustomer engagement refers to the engagement of customers with one another, with a company or a brand. The initiative for engagement can be either consumer- or company-led and the medium of engagement can be on or offline....
- Democracy PlayerDemocracy PlayerMiro is an Internet television application developed by the Participatory Culture Foundation. It is supported on Microsoft Windows, Mac OS X, and GNU/Linux...
- DeviantartDeviantArtdeviantART is an online community showcasing various forms of user-made artwork. It was first launched on August 7, 2000 by Scott Jarkoff, Matthew Stephens, Angelo Sotira and others. deviantArt, Inc...
- Fan artFan artFan art or fanart is artwork that is based on a character, costume, collage, item, or story that was created by someone other than the artist, such as a fan, from which the word is derived from. The term, while it can apply to art done by fans of characters from books, is usually used to refer to...
- Fan FictionFan fictionFan fiction is a broadly-defined term for fan labor regarding stories about characters or settings written by fans of the original work, rather than by the original creator...
- Generation C
- Happy slappingHappy slappingHappy slapping was a fad in the UK, in which someone assaulted an unwitting victim while others recorded the assault...
- Mod (computer gaming)Mod (computer gaming)Mod or modification is a term generally applied to personal computer games , especially first-person shooters, role-playing games and real-time strategy games. Mods are made by the general public or a developer, and can be entirely new games in themselves, but mods are not standalone software and...
- Motivations of Wikipedia ContributorsMotivations of Wikipedia contributorsWikipedia is an online encyclopedia that can be edited by anyone. The encyclopedia is maintained by volunteers who willingly edit and create articles with no monetary recompense...
- Networked information economy
- Open sourceOpen sourceThe term open source describes practices in production and development that promote access to the end product's source materials. Some consider open source a philosophy, others consider it a pragmatic methodology...
/Free SoftwareFree softwareFree software, software libre or libre software is software that can be used, studied, and modified without restriction, and which can be copied and redistributed in modified or unmodified form either without restriction, or with restrictions that only ensure that further recipients can also do... - Participatory designParticipatory designParticipatory design is an approach to design attempting to actively involve all stakeholders in the design process in order to help ensure the product designed meets their needs and is usable. The term is used in a variety of fields e.g...
- ProsumerProsumerProsumer is a portmanteau formed by contracting either the word professional or less often, producer with the word consumer. For example, a prosumer grade digital camera is a "cross" between consumer grade and professional grade...
- Reputation systemReputation systemA reputation system computes and publishes reputation scores for a set of objects within a community or domain, based on a collection of opinions that other entities hold about the objects...
- Social mediaSocial mediaThe term Social Media refers to the use of web-based and mobile technologies to turn communication into an interactive dialogue. Andreas Kaplan and Michael Haenlein define social media as "a group of Internet-based applications that build on the ideological and technological foundations of Web 2.0,...
- User innovationUser innovationUser innovation refers to innovation by intermediate users or consumer users , rather than by suppliers ....
- User-generated TVUser-generated TVUser-Generated Television or UGTV refers to TV footage that was originally created by a member of the public and then uploaded to the internet. Often the process of selecting such footage for broadcast includes the input of web users...
- Web 2.0Web 2.0The term Web 2.0 is associated with web applications that facilitate participatory information sharing, interoperability, user-centered design, and collaboration on the World Wide Web...
- YouTubeYouTubeYouTube is a video-sharing website, created by three former PayPal employees in February 2005, on which users can upload, view and share videos....
External links
- OECD study on the Participative Web: User Generated Content
- A Bigger Bang an overview of the UGC trend on the Web in 2006
- Packaged Goods Media vs. Conversational Media a comparison of UGC and professional/corporate media
- Social Media Database a user generated list of social media sites launched by Wildeffect