Legal Aspects of User Created Content

Abstract

The active and productive user or prosumer challenges fundamental concepts of traditional such as copyright law, audiovisual law, e-commerce law and protection law. Information law was clearly not written with UCC in mind and a situation in which the division of tasks between broadcasters, publishers, hosts and data controllers is no longer self-evident. In this chapter, we examine some legal implications when applying existing information law to amateur creators and Created Content platforms. More specifically we look at UCC in the context of copyright law, at audiovisual law and the question of UCC platforms or even individual amateur users are considered broadcasters in the sense of the law (with all the consequences thereof). We examine the liability of UCC platforms for user generated content under E-Commerce law, whether European protection law is fit to protect personal on Social Network Sites and what European contract law has to offer to guarantee the fairness of agreements between UCC platforms and users. We also make concrete suggestions for a more flexible and supportive legal environment. The chapter is part of a larger study User Created Content: Supporting a Participative Information Economy for the European Commission.