Page 165 - 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 5 Formulating a Non-commercial UGC Creation Levy Scheme
An Intermediary-oriented Approach

for each one. Sometimes a UGC is posted to different UGC platforms and the users of
different platforms substantially overlap. If UGC platforms pay copyright owners directly,
the amount of money the owners receive would depend on how many UGC platforms hosted
the UGCs containing their works. Copyright owners might want users to upload the UGCs to
multiple platforms as a condition to using their copyrighted works. Alternatively, copyright
owners might want to collaborate with UGC platforms to allow automatic re-uploading to
multiple platforms when a work is identified on one UGC platform. Multiple uploading
contributes nothing new to the society, but increases server workloads.
This thesis, concurring with some other commentors, advocates that levies should be
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distributed by CMOs, which have been deployed to collect and distribute remuneration to
copyright owners under the existing levy schemes. Through CMOs that collect levies from
various kinds of leviable devices and services, levies can be distributed to copyright owners
once rather than being separately distributed many times by every leviable device and
service. As Section 5.5.2 suggested, sponsored by each UGC platforms, CMOs can develop
the latest content identification technology and establish the most comprehensive database
for copyrighted works, and then licence the content identification technology and database
to each UGC platforms at an affordable price. CMOs also have comparative advantages in
collecting data on the popularity of works from diverse information sources. For example,
they can obtain statistics on the use of works and the distribution of users from each
platform, and learn about the use of popular works across different platforms by consulting
multiple-channel networks (MCNs). In this way, CMOs can estimate the popularity of
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copyrighted works and allocate levies to the corresponding copyright owners proportionately.
CMOs should publicise the list of copyright owners qualified for levy distribution sorted by
the amount of levies to be allocated so that non-members can also be remunerated.
One problem with using CMOs to distribute levies is that CMOs have been established
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on a national basis. As the Internet has no borders, many UGCs use foreign works, which
also enjoys copyright protection based on the Berne Convention. Once a domestic CMO
determines that a foreign copyrighted work qualifies for levy remuneration and calculates the
specific amount by the methods and criteria specified in Section 5.5.2., the domestic CMO
could transfer the levies to CMO in the country where the work is based. This could be done
through bilateral or international agreements or direct contacts, as the IFRRO and WIPO

231 Kim (n 223) 142; Lunny (n 73) 853.
232 MCNs are intermediaries between platforms and content producers, usually producers with a large volume of creation and
a great number of followers. MCNs help content producers to manage their copyrighted content across multiple channels or
multiple platforms, such as providing advice for content producers to produce more appealing content, allocating revenues to
content producers, and assisting content producers to enforce copyright against infringers. Havas X Envision, ‘From Multi-
Channel to Multi-Platform Networks: Content Moves beyond YouTube’ (Medium, 4 November 2015) <https://medium.
com/@18Havas/from-multi-channel-to-multi-platform-networks-content-moves-beyond-youtube-34e4b56bc3b0> accessed
20 June 2019.
233 CISAC, ‘The Importance of Collective Management’ <https://fr.cisac.org/content/download/1137/19653/file/
CISACUniversity_The_Importance_of_Collective_Management_FINAL.pdf> accessed 10 July 2019.

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