Page 210 - 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 7 Platform Users’ Entitlement to UGCs: Human Use and Web Scraping
An Intermediary-oriented Approach

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UGCs in Article 6. Both licences are written in the same structure. Some platforms even
place the licence for the UGC platform and platform users in the same clause. For instance,
Pinterest provides as follows:

You grant Pinterest and our users a non-exclusive, royalty-free,
transferable, sublicensable, worldwide licence to use, store, display,
reproduce, save, modify, create derivative works, perform and
distribute your User Content on Pinterest solely for the purposes of
operating, developing, providing and using Pinterest.
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Both contracting parties (the UGC platform and the UGC creators) have the intention
to grant platform users a licence to access and use UGCs. For the UGC platform, giving
platform users’ access to and the use of UGCs is the underlying condition to maintaining
the operation of the UGC platform, and a condition that attracts more users, which secures
its future business. After all, due to the economies of scale, network effects and users’ lock-
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in costs, the large scale of UGC platforms becomes self-reinforcing. For the UGC creators,
platform users’ access to and use of UGCs draw attention and traffic to the UGCs through the
power of peer distribution. This benefits UGC creators. As UGC creators’ licence to UGC
platform users brings the contracting parties additional benefits beyond the UGC creators’
licence to the UGC platform, such additional benefits render platform users intended
beneficiaries.
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Nevertheless, even if UGC platform users are regarded as merely incidental beneficiaries,
they can still enforce their entitlement to UGCs based on their direct contractual relationship
with the UGC platform set forth in the ToU/ToS. UGC platforms can sublicence the
copyright licence of UGCs to platform users. For example, YouTube allows a YouTube user
to access any content hosted on YouTube ‘for personal use solely as intended through the

17 ‘You may access Content for your information and personal use solely as intended through the provided functionality of
the Service and as permitted under these Terms of Service’. (Terms of Service in YouTube, art 5B <https://www.youtube.
com/static?template=terms> accessed 19 May 2019) ‘Art 6C by submitting Content to YouTube, you hereby grant YouTube
a worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free, sublicenceable and transferable license to use, reproduce, distribute, prepare
derivative works of, display, publish, adapt, make available online or electronically transmit, and perform the Content in
connection with the Service and YouTube's (and its successors' and affiliates') business, including without limitation for
promoting and redistributing part or all of the Service (and derivative works thereof) in any media formats and through any
media channels. You also hereby grant each user of the Service a non-exclusive license to access your Content through the
Service, and to use, reproduce, distribute, display, publish, make available online or electronically transmit, and perform
such Content as permitted through the functionality of the Service and under these Terms of Service’. (Terms of Service in
YouTube, art 6C).
18 Terms of Service in Pinterest, art 3b <https://policy.pinterest.com/en/terms-of-service> accessed 19 May 2019.
19 Section 5.4.1.1, para 2.
th
20 Tinney v. City of Detroit, No. 98-1510, at *15 (6 Cir., 1999) (citing Radisson Hotel Corp. v. Pontchartrain Hotel Group,
L.L.C., 983 F. Supp. 692 (E.D. Mich. 1997)) (rejecting to enforce ‘the contracts provided no benefit to plaintiffs other than
what was agreed to by plaintiffs and defendant in their collective bargaining agreement’).

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