Major Internet and Media Companies Sign Off on Agreement about Third-Party Copyrighted Materials in User-Generated Content

Major Internet and media companies, including CBS, Dailymotion, Fox, Microsoft, NBC Universal, Viacom, and Walt Disney, have agreed to abide by a new set of principles (User Generated Content Principles) for detecting and regulating the use of third-party copyrighted materials in user-generated content.

Here's an excerpt from the press release:

The principles, which are attached and available in full at www.ugcprinciples.com, call for a broad range of constructive and cooperative efforts by copyright owners and UGC services. They include:

Implementation of state of the art filtering technology with the goal to eliminate infringing content on UGC services, including blocking infringing uploads before they are made available to the public;

Upgrading technology when commercially reasonable;

Cooperating to ensure that the technology is implemented in a manner that effectively balances legitimate interests, including fair use;

Cooperation in developing procedures for promptly addressing claims that content was blocked in error;

Regularly using the technology to remove infringing content that was uploaded before the technology could block it;

Identification and removal of links to sites that are clearly dedicated to, and predominantly used for, the dissemination of infringing content; and,

Promotion of content-rich, infringement-free services by continuing to cooperatively test new technologies and by collaboratively updating these principles as appropriate to keep current with evolving developments.