Page 28 - 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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research as appendixes. The relevant data from the empirical study of the ToUs/ToSs are
found in Chapters 6 and 7.

Interviews

As I visited both UC Berkeley and Singapore Management University during my Ph.D.
studies, the 14 face-to-face personal interviews were carried out in the US and Singapore,
Hong Kong and mainland China. There were four categories of interviewees: UGC creators,
professional creators (students majoring in the arts), legal counsel for UGC platforms, and
judges. Each interview lasted from 15 minutes to two hours.
The questions directed to the UGC creators and professional creators mainly related
to (i) the incentives for creation, (ii) the necessary skills needed to create UGCs and how
the creators learned the skills, (iii) the frequency of their creations, (iv) whether the UGC
creator had acquired a licence from or given attribution to the copyright owner of the pre-
existing work, (v) the commercialisation of the UGCs and whether the creators received
remuneration, (vi) the use of the UGCs by other platform users and the UGC creator’s
attitude towards different kinds of uses, and (vii) the UGC creator’s attitude towards fair use
and compulsory licencing.
The questions for the judges were on the following main themes: (i) important cases
concerning UGCs, (ii) the application of fair use to UGCs, (iii) the liability of UGC
platforms and (iv) the effectiveness of copyright collective societies.
The questions addressed to the legal counsel for UGC platforms were designed to learn
about (i) the business model of the UGC platform and (ii) the efforts of the UGC platform to
prevent infringement and promote UGCs.

Online questionnaires

UGC is a worldwide phenomenon. The questionnaires were distributed online mainly
through WeChat, WhatsApp and Facebook. In the Internet era, many people have a short
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attention span. Thus, the questionnaire was short. It took less than five minutes to complete.
The questions include (i) the respondents’ age and degree, which were related to their
capacity to sign the ToUs/ToSs with the UGC platforms and the readability of ToUs/ToSs,
(ii) the respondents’ place of origin, which was related to the most-frequently-visited types
of UGC platforms and the degree of UGC commercialisation, (iii) the most frequently used
UGC platforms, (iv) the most common devices used to access these platforms, which was
related to the design of ToUs/ToSs, (v) whether the respondents’ had read the ToUs/ToSs and
if so, under what circumstances s/he had read them, (vi) the frequency of UGC creation, (vii)

85 Appendixes 2-15.
86 Lizette Borreli, ‘Human Attention Spans Shortens to 8 Seconds due to Digital Technology: 3 Ways to Stay Focused’ (Medical
Daily, 14 May 2015) <https://www.medicaldaily.com/human-attention-span-shortens-8-seconds-due-digital-technology-3-
ways-stay-focused-333474> accessed 15 May 2019.

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