Page 203 - 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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with specific UGCs and sublicencing or transferring the copyright ownership of the UGCs.
‘Indirect exploitation’ refers to the exploitation of many UGCs, combined in a collection and
treated as a whole rather than as specific or individual UGCs. Examples include such things
as inviting advertisers to appear on the webpage of a UGC platform as opposed to inserting
an advertisement with an individual UGC; and sublicencing the entire collection of UGCs
hosted on the platform rather than sublicencing one or a few UGCs. Corresponding to UGC
platforms’ direct and indirect exploitation, UGC creators should have right to receive both
direct remuneration and indirect remuneration.
Currently, UGC creators only receive remuneration from UGC platforms’ direct
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exploitation. As direct remuneration corresponds to specific UGCs, I suggest that it should
be automatically allocated to the specific UGC creators every time direct exploitation occurs.
This is reasonable, given the advances in digital metering technology and the convenience of
electronic payment. To facilitate the allocation of direct remuneration, UGC platforms could
determine the proper ratio for allocating remuneration between the platform and the UGC
creators. For example, the UGC platform could pay UGC creators 30% of the income from
direct exploitation and the platform would retain the remaining 70%. The allocation ratio
should be approved by a third-party authority such as the copyright royalty judges discussed
in Section 5.5, and should be publicised to all platform users. Once the UGC platform
earns income from direct exploitation, a pre-determined portion of the revenues could
automatically be transferred to the UGC creator.
Unlike direct remuneration, remuneration from indirect exploitation has often been
overlooked. As most UGCs only appeal to niche users and do not attract the mainstream
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market, the value of UGCs lies more in collecting a colossal number of UGCs than it
does with individual UGCs. Consequently, UGC platforms earn more profit from indirect
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exploitation of a general category of UGCs, than they do from direct exploitation of specific
UGCs. Although UGC platforms make significant investments in organising dispersed UGCs
into well ordered, marketable information, and thus can stake a claim to income earned from
indirect exploitation, UGC creators contribute the source of the marketable content and thus
have the right to earn a share of the remuneration. The problem is that remuneration from
indirect exploitation is not directly associated with specific UGCs, making it difficult to
allocate indirect remuneration to UGC creators.
Drawing on the non-commercial UGC access levy scheme proposed in Chapter 4
and the non-commercial UGC creation levy scheme in Chapter 5 (hereinafter referred to
collectively as the non-commercial UGC levy schemes), I suggest that UGC platforms could

229 According to our analysis of the scope of the license in Section 6.4.1, UGC platforms should seek for a license regarding the
right to prepare derivative works from the UGC creator.
230 See supra notes 213-225 and accompanying text.
231 Section 6.2.2.
232 Section 7.3.1.

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