Page 202 - 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 6 UGC Platforms’ Entitlement to UGCs
An Intermediary-oriented Approach

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successful example is YouTube’s content identification (Content ID) system. The Content
ID system requires copyright owners who wish to join it to upload samples of their work
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to the Content ID database. These samples are called ‘reference files’. The Content ID
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system uses the reference files to scan all uploaded content. If there is a match between
an uploaded content and a reference file, the Content ID system will automatically apply
the match policy that the copyright owner of the reference file chose in advance: block,
monetise or track. Block is applied to disable the accessibility of the uploaded content on
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the platform. Track is applied to tolerate the use but to track the statistics on the matched
content. However, over 98% of Content ID claims have been solved by monetisation. In
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such cases the copyright owner allows the continual display of the matched material but
inserts advertisements into it. The ad revenue is shared between the copyright owner and
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YouTube. 225
Notwithstanding the foregoing, the Content ID system only protects copyright owners
who can ‘provide evidence of the copyrighted content for which they control exclusive
rights’, and explicitly excludes ‘mashups, best ofs, compilations and remixes of other
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works’. Consequently, only the creators of user-authored-content can receive remuneration
from the Content ID programme; the creators for user-derived-content cannot. YouTube
found it unnecessary to remunerate user-derived-content because most UGCs have a low
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market price. However, since UGC platforms have become increasingly important in
widening the reach and expanding the audience base of UGCs, more and more high quality
and valuable user-derived-content will be attracted to UGC platforms. In response, I
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suggest a remuneration scheme that covers both user-authored content and user-derived
content as long as the UGC meets the originality standard.
How UGC creators should be remunerated by UGC platforms depends on how UGC
platforms exploit UGCs. UGC platforms exploit UGCs both directly and indirectly. ‘Direct
exploitation’ refers to the exploitation of specific UGCs, such as inserting an advertisement

218 YouTube, ‘How Content ID works?’ <https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/2797370?hl=en> accessed 19 May 2019.
219 Ibid.
220 Ibid.
221 Ibid.
222 Ibid.
223 Ibid.
224 Paul Resnikoff, ‘99.5% of All Infringing Music Videos are Resolved by Content ID, YouTube Claims’ (Digital Music News,
8 August 2016) <https://www.digitalmusicnews.com/2016/08/08/copyright-problems-resolved-content-id/> accessed 18 May
2019.
225 Ibid.
226 How Content ID works? (n 218).
227 Appendix 9.
228 See supra note 211 and accompanying text.

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