Page 16 - A Study on the Role of UGC Platforms in Copyright Law：An Intermediary-oriented Approach

A Study on the Role of UGC Platforms in Copyright Law: Chapter 1 Introduction
An Intermediary-oriented Approach

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though it does not modify the content.
The wave of UGC creation has had a significant social and cultural impact, such as
increased user autonomy and participation, the democratisation of access to the media and
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accentuated cultural and social fragmentation. Nevertheless, UGC creation has not had
9
much influence on copyright law. Copyright owners have rarely asserted infringement
claims against UGC creators until recently, because most UGCs have been used in non-
commercial ways that do not conflict with the normal use of the pre-existing works on which
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the UGCs are based.
Although UGCs are normally created for non-commercial purposes, UGC platforms have
greatly profited from it. For instance, when YouTube was founded in 2005, it was ranked
as the fifth most popular website. A year later, 100 million videos were viewed on it each
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day. By 2018, it was valued at US$160 billion, which was 97 times the US$1.65 billion
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Google paid for it in 2006. Tik Tok (called Douyin in China), a UGC platform for creating
and sharing short videos, was launched in China in September 2016. It rapidly expanded to
overseas markets, ranking as the most frequently downloaded app from app stores in the US
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and other countries. With more than 1 billion videos viewed per day, Tik Tok was valued
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at US$75 billion in 2018. Many other platforms, such as Instagram, Snapchat, Vimeo and
Pinterest, have sprung up within the last decade and have contributed to the prosperity of the
UGC industry. 15

7 Ibid 858. See notes 20-31 in Chapter 5 and accompanying text.
8 OECD (n 2) 67.
9 Yahong Li, ‘The Age of Remix and Copyright Law Reform’ (2019 forthcoming) 12 Law, Innovation and Technology
3 <https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3316523> accessed 15 April 2019. This observation is also
demonstrated by my empirical study. Many UGC creators I interviewed neither ask permission from copyright owners nor
get cease-and-desist letters from copyright owners (Appendixes 2-15).
10 According to my online survey, 91.91% of UGC creators create UGCs for personal enjoyment and sharing with friends. See
Questions 12 and 26 in Appendix 1, (103+143+13+25)/(265+44)=91.91%. This observation is also demonstrated by other
studies. For example, Clay Shirky discovered that non-commercial incentives is the most important reason why amateurs
engage in cultural creation (Shirky (n 1) 3). Eric Raymond found that sharing is the most important incentives for cultural
progress and technological innovation (Eric S. Raymond, The Cathedral & the Bazaar: Musings on Linux and Open Source
by an Accidental Revolutionary (O'Reilly Media, 2008) 6). Yochai Benkler emphasized that noncommercial cultural
production is more common and more efficient than commercial production in the network technology (Yochai Benkler, The
Wealth of Networks: How Social Production Transforms Markets and Freedom (Yale University Press, 2007) 3).
11 USA Today, ‘YouTube Serves up 100 Million Videos a Day Online’ (16 July 2006) <https://usatoday30.usatoday.com/tech/
news/2006-07-16-youtube-views_x.htm> accessed 6 April 2019.
12 MediaKix, ‘YouTube Valuation: The Video-Sharing Platform Could Be Worth $160 Billion’ <http://mediakix.com/2018/05/
youtube-valuation-social-media/#gs.2h0t8z> accessed 15 April 2019. Reinhardt Krause, ‘Is What Google Won't Tell You
About YouTube's Financials’ (Investor’s Business Daily, 27 May 2016) <https://www.investors.com/news/technology/
youtube-valuation-soaring-profits-blurry-as-facebook-amazon-loom/> accessed 15 May 2019.
13 Thomas Graziani, ‘How Douyin became China's Top Short-Video App in 500 days’ (WalktheChat, 30 July 2018) < https://
walkthechat.com/douyin-became-chinas-top-short-video-app-500-days/> accessed 15 May 2019.
14 Sam Byford, ‘TikTok Owner Bytedance is Now the World’s Most Valuable Startup’ (The Verge, 26 October 2018) <https://
www.theverge.com/2018/10/26/18026250/bytedance-china-tiktok-valuation-highest-toutiao> accessed 15 May 2019.
15 Christina Newberry, ‘A Marketer’s Guide to Using User-Generated Content on Social Media’ (Hootsuite, 12 March 2019)
<https://blog.hootsuite.com/user-generated-content-ugc/> accessed 15 May 2019.

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