Introduction of a New Exception: The Protection of User-Generated Content under UK Copyright Law

Abstract

The rapidly developing Web 2.0 technologies positively affect the development of User-generated Content (UGC). UGC is considered as various types of multimedia content generated by online users that are available publicly. The situations of UGC are not optimistic in the UK, as the current copyright protection for original works is deemed to be over strict, which leads to a series of problems such as an inhibition of freedom of users and hindrance to economic growth and innovation. In order to explore how to effectively introduce the new exception into the copyright law of the UK, this paper refers to the copyright protection approaches of the copyright laws of Canada and the US for UGC. With respect to the Canadian experience, Canadian copyright law adopts a semi-open dealing system, whereas US copyright law establishes a fair use system to protect UGC. Both methods have achieved some degree of success in practice. However, each of them has its drawbacks. The introduction of semi-open fair trade system into the UK copyright system will improve the flexibility and efficiency copyright protection of UGC. But it has also been criticized for imposing too much emphasis on non-commercial purposes and for overlapping protection issues. The core advantage of the US fair use system is that it is flexible to balance exclusive rights with satisfying social, cultural and economic needs, but one of the realistic problems is that the UK does not have a tradition of fair use system and whether it can be implemented in the UK copyright law remains to be seen. After a comparison between the US approach and Canadian approach to the copyright protection of UGC, it can be concluded that a semi-open fair dealing regime for a UGC exception in UK copyright law with reference to Canadian experience is much more suitable for the UK, which will provide more flexibility and legal certainty.