Supporting a participative InformationSociety

User-Created Content: Supporting a participative Information Society Support document for the workshop

Brussels, 7th November 2008

With partners

Table of contents

Objectives and scope of the study........................................

3

Methodology .........................................................................

5

Access issues - Will broadband networks sustain UCC growth?...................................................‌............................

9

Business models - Is the value of UCC platforms in the content?..................................................................................

12

User as a producer, or the end of professional content?......

25

Legal and Policy issues - Is self-regulation the solution?.....

37

22

Objectives and scope of the study

33

Objectives and scope of the study The objective of the study was threefold:

To analyse the developments taking place in the field of user-created content, To assess their economic, social, technical and legal implications, and To consider how these affect EU policies in the field of ICT and media.

In this context, User-Created Content refers to :

Content made publicly available through telecommunication networks, which reflects a certain amount of creative efforts, and is created outside of the professional routines and practices.

It does not deal only with content made publicly available on the Internet but with content made available through any telecommunication network and platform.

The analysis should cover:

Europe and the most advanced countries in the world, in particular the USA, Japan and South Korea 44

Methodology

55

Methodology Some literature already exists in the field of user-created content and has been collected by the consortium and used as a basis throughout the mission.

50 case studies have been elaborated on the basis of information collected from the web sites of the companies as well as from the press and some dedicated web sites.

55 interviews (face to face and phone interviews) have also been conducted during the mission.

A workshop with a representative set of stakeholders is organised in Brussels in order to present and validate the major findings of the study.

66

List of the 50 case studies North America Video sharing Photo sharing

Japan& South Korea

Western Europe

Southern Europe

Pandora.TV

DailyMotion

Tuclip

Nordic countries

Eastern Europe Neogen.tv

Flickr

Fotosik

Photobucket Social network

Islandoo

Cyworld

Serious Talent

Dada

Wer.weiss.was

Wikilengua

LunarStorm

MySpace Knowledge sharing/ Collaborative work

Wikipedia RocWiki

Citizen journalism

OhmyNews

AgoraVox Skoeps

Virtual World

VirtualMe

VirtualMe

Habbo Hotel

Last.fm

Biblioteket.se

SecondLife Video Games

Machinima WeGame Kongregate

Recommendation

LibraryThing

Deezer Talent Search

Ziddio

Manuscrit

Blurb

Sellaband

Lulu

Backstage KijkmijTV/SeeMeTV MTV Flux Zizone

Social bookmarking Mobile specific services

Mister Wong Qik

Perso TV

Mobango

Mobango ShoZu Betavine UCC service on the TV set

Fame TV TV Perso

Audiobooks

LibriVox

Content ranking

Threadless

Government 2.0

FixMyStreet

77

List of interviews AFP

Frank Alsema

Myvideo (SBS)

AgoraVox

Frankwatching

Neogen

Akamai

Freshnetworks (Freshminds)

Netlog

Alain Bensoussan Avocats

Garage TV

News corporation

andUNITE

Geenstijl

OECD

BBC

Google (Youtube)

Orange

Brainsonic

Habbo Hotel (Sulake)

Red Chocolate (GoSupermodel)

British Telecom

Havas Digital

RIA Novosti

Buma/Stemra

IJsfontijn

RTL Netherlands

Charlie Becket

Khaeon Games

ScreenTonic

Cory Doctorow

Lagardère Active

Skyrock

Dailymotion

Lego

Swinxs

Endemol

Livejournal

Telecom Italia

e-TF1 / WAT

Marketingfacts

Telekom Austria

European Federation of Magazine Publishers

Mediaedge:cia

Twingly

European Newspaper Publishers' Association

Mobibase

William Dutton

Eyeka

Moshi Monsters (Mind Candy)

WoZZon

Federation of European Publishers

MySport

88

Access Issues Will broadband networks sustain UCC growth?

99

The technical environment: broadband everywhere?

Penetration of broadband Internet access among European households in 2007

The development of UCC services is currently sustained by the quick broadband adoption‌

90 80 70 60 50 40

‌But cable is also widespread and the digitization of the networks is on the right path

20 10

% of HH with Internet acces s

Greece

Bulgaria

Romania

Italy

Cyprus

Slovakia

Czech Republic

Poland

Portugal

Latvia

Ireland

Hungary

Spain

Lithuania

EU Countries (27)

Malta

France

Austria

Slovenia

Estonia

Germany

UK

Belgium

Finland

Luxembourg

Sweden

Denmark

0

Netherlands

IPTV also experiences a strong development in some market and could complement the access to UCC services

30

% of HH with broadband Internet acces s

Source: IDATE based on Eurostat

Evolution of 3G subscribers in Europe from 2007 to 2011 90% 80% 70% 60% 50% 40% 30% 20% 10%

2007

Poland

Hungary

Romania

Czech Republic

Estonia

Bulgaria

Lithuania

Cyprus

Greece

Latvia

Malta

Finland

Slovenia

France

Belgium

United Kingdom

Total EU countries (27)

Luxembourg

Ireland

Germany

Netherlands

Spain

Austria

Slovakia

Denmark

Mobile is seen as the future Eldorado for UCC services

Portugal

Italy

0% Sweden

Last but not least, 3G penetration is still low but is expected to experience a tremendous growth in the coming years

2011

Source: IDATE

10 10

Drivers and obstacles The most important technological driver is access to broadband internet, determined by the availability and affordability. Important for the further development of UCC is the access to mobile broadband internet, also as this might become an alternative for fixed networks.

Broadband enables people to upload content produced with the widely available digital equipment and edit / share it by means of easy-to-use (online) tools.

However, when these conditions are not right in regions the drivers become obstacles. When there is a lack of access to broadband in terms of availability and affordability the development of UCC is hindered. Moreover, even if there is sufficient access to broadband, insufficient upload capacity is a barrier.

11 11

Business models Is the value of UCC platforms in the content?

12 12

UCC services and advertising revenue: an impossible equation?

UCC sites with global audience + increasing Internet advertising spending = no advertising revenue for UCC sites A spectacular growth in the audience of UCC sites:

the number of users of video sites nearly doubled from the end of 2006 to the end of 2007

+ A tremendous increase in Internet advertising expenditures :

69% of additional advertising spending around the globe from 2007 to 2010 will go to the web (~61 billion USD in 2010)

= A modest take-off of advertising spending on UCC services: Estimates of UCC advertising expenditures for Western Europe and the USA (in billion USD)

Internet advertising expenditures (Western Europe) Of which UCC spending Internet advertising expenditures (USA) Of which UCC spending

2007

2008

2009

2010

9 997

12 752

15 857

19 516

77 16 112

162

136 19 173

278

206 20 611

391

289 22 611

519

Source: IDATE for UCC spending estimates in Western Europe, eMarketer for estimates in the USA and ZenithOptimedia for the Internet advertising expenditures

13 13

No future for donation revenue?

Most wikis websites totally or partially rely on revenues derived from donation, as non-profit organizations.

Wikipedia = The most emblematic wikis:

Nearly a quarter of a billion people visiting Wikipedia every month

Generating nearly 4 billion page views (Comscore worldwide, February 2008),

Total income (mainly donations) = USD 1.5 million in 2006 and USD 2.7 million in 2007.

Total expenses of about USD 2.1 million.

Wikipedia would be seriously considering proposals to become financially independent via advertising on the site.

14 14

Could paying models be a credible alternative to advertising?

The Internet is traditionally seen as the temple of free, but… … several UCC services have developed various paying models – not necessarily directly linked to UCC – contributing to generate complementary revenue:

Monthly, quarterly or yearly subscription fees to access to premium services (for example extra storage capacity for photo-sharing sites),

Subscription fees to access content (like for a TV premium channel, like PersoTV),

Revenues generated by the sale of user created content (like Lulu) or the sale of goods/items derived from UCC (for example the sale of tee-shirts or mugs created with photos uploaded by users).

UCC platforms also derive revenues from the licensing of content and technology to third parties, from the sale of personal data and/or of aggregated data for statistical analyses.

Isn’t the value of UCC services in the technical expertise or the quality of services rather than on content itself?

15 15

Successful UCC services’ business models: still a work in progress‌ The UCC phenomenon is still too recent to ensure that business models should be definitively set.

UCC platforms are still struggling to find out viable business models. These latter will probably evolve in a near future:

Advertising will hold a major place in the financing of UCC services: since users seem reluctant to pay for accessing the content proposed on UCC platforms, the latter will have to find other sources of income and will develop in particular free models based on advertising revenue. This implies that advertising adapts first to a 2.0 environment;

Subscription and paying models will only be possible for premium services: it seems that users are willing to pay only for services such as extra storage capacities, or music downloading or dating services. But that will concern only a minority of users and specific services;

Donation models should remain quite limited to very specific services, such as non profit organizations with a confidential audience (so as to limit the operational costs);

Licensing and e-commerce should also play a growing role in the future economy of UCC services 16 16

Could the authors benefit from their creations?

Examples of revenue sharing between UCC services and content creators Category

Service

Description

Video sharing

YouTube

YouTube paid out more than USD 1 million in total revenue to user partners as part of the Partner Program between December 2007 and April 2008.

The amount of the revenue sharing depends on the notoriety of the content.

TuClip

Authors of the videos selected on Antena 3 receive 100 EUR Author of the video selected as being the best of the week receives 600 EUR

Social Netw orks

MySpace

Developers will be given the right to monetize themselves, through advertising, the applications they created on the MySpace Developer Platform and to keep all revenue.

Citizen Journalism

AgoraVox

In the long run, the authors of the best stories w ill be remunerated depending on the traffic and interest they generate.

OhMyNews

The author of a story published on the website’s main page receives KRW 20 000 (about 13 EUR).

Before September 2007, an artic le published anywhere else on the site was also remunerated with a KRW 2 000 payment.

Skoeps

50% of the revenue (~€50) from content sales was shared with users that generated the content.

Part of the advertising revenues was shared with the skoeps reporters

Video Games

Talent search

Kongregate

Kongregate shares between 25% and 50% of ad revenue generated by games with their respective developers Kongregate pays skilled developers between USD 20,000-80,000 to create premium games to provide their community w ith quality games.

80% of the revenue from in-game micro transactions goes to the game creator

WeGame

The top 5 placers can w in prizes. First place gets a USD 250 Amazon.com gift certif icate, 2nd gets a USD 100 gift certif icate, 3rd gets a USD 50 gift certif icate, and 4th and 5th both get a USD 25 gift certif icate

SeeMeTV

Each video download normally costs 25 Eurocents. From this amount, 10% is shared with the video owner

Manuscrit

Le Manuscrit Publisher pays commissions to its authors: •For electronic files: betw een 25% and40% of DF price according to the number of copies sold •For print on demand books: between 8% and 15% of DF price according to the number of copies sold

MTV Flux

Users keep 100% of the advertis ing revenue generated on the web pages that they are hosting. On the additional pages hosted by Flux - such as profile pages, community pages, etc. – Flux splits with the users (50/50) the Flux advertising revenue generated each month.

Sellaband

The advertising revenue generated on the website w ill be credited to the Artists corresponding with the number of free downloads related to their music titles in relation to the total number of downloads.

The profit of the standard album w ill also be split equally between The Artist, The Believers and SellaBand.

Ziddio

Ziddio regularly holds contests where w inners are awarded w ith "exotic" prizes such as a TV production deal, a gaming system, a stack of cash, etc.

UCC on the TV set

Fame TV

To urge users to submit content, Fame TV grants a GBP 0.10 reward to an author each time its content generates a premium SMS vote, charged GBP 1 to users

Content ranking

Threadless

Threadless shares its revenues with tee-shirt designers and slogan authors, and also pay members who contribute to sales.

Source: IDATE according to companies

17 17

Generating revenue: not the main driver for people sharing their content on UCC services Main motivating factors for authors:

Expressing oneself, Being famous (even if fleeting) Or stay tuned to one's community turn

Probably two different attitudes depending on the main intention of people:

When it deals with "real amateur" content, people do not expect revenue and accept to share their content for free

When it deals with potentially talented people, who could expect to derive income from their content, the fact is that they could accept to share their content for free since their primary goal is not to make money directly through the Web but to have the opportunity to become famous and then to make money in a more "old-fashion" way (by selling CDs or working for a TV channel for example).

18 18

Business models vary depending on the nature of UCC services (1/2) Principles of UCC classification

A classification has been developed during the mission so as to provide an analysis framework for UCC services.

This classification is based on a content and user approach as opposed to a platform or service approach. It is based on the three following criteria:

Type of content; Social aspect; Economic aspect.

Type of content

Economic Revenue

Social

No revenue

Happy Few

Personal

X

X

Personal

X

Story telling

X

Story telling

X

Story telling

X

Story telling

X

Examples

Category name

Large/Open access

X X X X

Souvenir photos

Private Content

Funny videos

Personal Content

Wedding book

Stories for my friends

Collaborative work

Enlightened amateur

Book in commemoration of a specific event X

Mini series

Limited series

Semi-pro

Main characteristics of the UCC categories Open/Large access

Criteria used for the UCC classification Criterion Type of content

Social aspect

Economic aspect

Definitions Personal

refers to content developed without editorial views (example: souvenir photos)

Story telling

refers to content developed with editorial views (example: online photo album integrating comments, music, etc.)

Happy Few

refers to a restricted access to content. The creator appoints the people who will be authorized to access his/her content

Large/Open access

refers to a large or totally open access to content, that is to say that every people having access to the service (either through a registration process or not) will be able to access content

Revenue

when it is possible for the creator to earn money (even if it is not systematic)

No Revenue

when it is not possible for the creator to derive revenue from his/her creation (even if the UCC service could earn money thanks to this content)

Enlightened Amateur Semi-Pro Personal Content

Revenue

No revenue Private Content Limited series Stories for my friends

Happy Few Personal

Story telling

Source: IDATE

19 19

Business models vary depending on the nature of UCC services (2/2) Almost all types of UCC services integrate advertising revenues in their business models.

Main sources of revenues for services of each category of the UCC classification

Donations and public funding mainly fuelled the "enlightened amateur" category.

The subscription models are essentially to be found in the four "no revenue" categories (cf. on the left-hand-side of the classification).

Open/Large access Enlightened Amateur Advertising +donations +public funding Personal Content Advertising + subscription fees +e-commerce

Revenue

No revenue

Revenues derived from e-commerce are common in the two “revenue� categories (cf. on the right-hand-side of the classification),

but not limited to them.

Semi-Pro Advertising + e-commerce

Private Content Advertising + subscription fees

Limited series E-commerce

Stories for my friends Advertising + subscription fees

Happy Few Personal

Story telling

Source: IDATE

20 20

The value chain also varies depending on the possibility for UCC to generate revenues (1/3) The value chain for the "Semi-Pro" and "Limited series" categories:

This model is the only one in which users/consumers pay for UCC and the only one in which the users/creators derive revenue from their works.

Creation

Consumption

Distribution

Content providers

Other websites / content publishers

Consumer electronics manufacturers

Users/creators

Consumer electronics manufacturers

Software providers

Software providers

UCC platforms

ISPs and telcos

ISPs and telcos

Advertisers

UCC flows

Users/consumers

Content/service flows (different from UCC)

Investors

Revenue flows (revenue generated by UCC)

Revenue flows (revenue not generated by UCC)

Source: IDATE

21 21

The value chain also varies depending on the possibility for UCC to generate revenues (2/3) The value chain for the "Enlightened Amateur" and "Personal content" categories:

In this model, UCC platforms can only hope to monetize UCC thanks to partnerships with other Internet players or content publishers. Otherwise, neither the platforms, nor the creators derive direct revenue from UCC. Creation

Consumption

Distribution

Content providers

Other websites / content publishers

Consumer electronics manufacturers

Users/creators

Consumer electronics manufacturers

Software providers

Software providers

UCC platforms

ISPs and telcos

ISPs and telcos

Advertisers

UCC flows

Users/consumers

Content/service flows (different from UCC)

Investors

Revenue flows (revenue generated by UCC)

Source: IDATE

Revenue flows (revenue not generated by UCC)

22 22

The value chain also varies depending on the possibility for UCC to generate revenues (3/3) The value chain for the "Stories for my friends" and "Private content" categories:

In this model, where the access to UCC is restricted to a "happy few" base, no direct monetization of UCC is possible.

Creation

Consumption

Distribution

Content providers

Other websites / content publishers

Consumer electronics manufacturers

Users/creators

Consumer electronics manufacturers

Software providers

Software providers

UCC platforms

ISPs and telcos

ISPs and telcos

Advertisers

UCC flows

Users/consumers

Content/service flows (different from UCC)

Investors

Revenue flows (revenue generated by UCC)

Revenue flows (revenue not generated by UCC)

Source: IDATE

23 23

Drivers and obstacles Due to the need for self-expression and social interaction UCC platforms can potentially achieve a large target audience / market. Companies can use UCC to get involvement / engagement of users with their products or services.

Although still limited in relation to the availability of UCC, use of UCC by traditional (media) companies provides an additional driver for UCC. However, in spite of the large quantities of UCC produced there is a lack of original and high quality content which is due to technical quality (video made with mobile phones) but also artistic and professional quality.

Moreover fragmentation of UCC makes it difficult for platforms to achieve critical mass to be able to monetise UCC. Investments in the platform are necessary, such as storage capacity and bandwidth, while revenues are very uncertain.

Also the large amount of UCC that is available to large platforms makes it difficult to monitor content to prevent any unwanted content (offensive content, illegal content). This makes the threat of legal action an obstacle.

Getting the users involved by means of UCC also means there is loss of control over image and brand.

24 24

User as a producer Or the end of professional content?

25 25

Individual Internet skills: tomorrow, all literates? % of individuals using Internet regularly (at least once a week during the last three months) 90 80

A growing use of the Internet closely linked to the home penetration of the Internet, and in particular of broadband‌

70 60 50 40 30 20 10

2005

Breakdown of the Internet heavy users by country and by age, in 2007

2006

Greece

Romania

Italy

Bulgaria

Cyprus

Portugal

Poland

Malta

Czech Republic

Spain

Lithuania

Hungary

Slovenia

Ireland

Slovakia

Latvia

EU Countries (27)

France

Austria

Estonia

Belgium

UK

Germany

Luxembourg

Finland

Sweden

Denmark

0 Netherlands

‌but strong disparities between the North and North-West of Europe on the one hand and the East and South of Europe on the other hand

2007

Source: IDATE based on Eurostat

Men and young people are more heavy users but women and elderly are closing the gap

Source: EIAA, Mediascope Europe 2007

26 26

Online activities: directly from the producers to the consumers!

Top ten online activities Monthly usage of Social Computing applications in 2007

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in g

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26%

ew s

ip s

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W at ch

27%

ip

30%

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Li st

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31%

g gi n sa es tm

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37%

te s si g

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Em ai l

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42%

un

+42% since 2006

81%

vi

~ 83% have already watched videos online ~ 38% have already uploaded a videoclip to a video sharing site

87%

Se

+150% since 2006

cl

A quick adoption of the UCC services but even heavy Internet users are more “spectators” than “actors”

de o

Content is definitely the main driver of the Internet’s growth

The main activities related to social media platforms

Source: EIAA Mediascope Europe 2006 and 2007 [Base: All Europe Internet users (n=4017)]

UCC services = a new way of discovering talents, but each single Internet user IS NOT a new talent

Source: Universal McCann, Power to the people – Social Media Tracker Wave 3 (March 2008)

27 27

Participation to the Information society: enthusiasm comes from Eastern Europe‌ Comparison of the actual reach of social media platforms' activities by country (March 2008) in percentage of Internet users Romania

South Korea

100%

Hungary

90%

South Korea

80%

Romania Czech Republic

70% 60%

Romania

Poland

50% 40% 30% 20% 10% 0% Watching videos

Reading blogs Belonging to a social network

Uploading photos

Uploading videos

Podcasting

Writing blogs

South Korea

Poland

Romania

Spain

UK

Greece

Austria

Netherlands

Czech Republic

Japan

Italy

Germany

Denmark

USA

France

Hungary

Subscribing to a RSS feed

Source: According to Universal McCann, Power to the people – Social Media Tracker Wave 3 (March 2008)

28 28

Participation to the Information society: ‌ but the habits are in the Netherlands and in South Korea Comparison of the actual reach of social media platforms' activities by country (March 2008) in percentage of total population Netherlands

50% 45%

Netherlands Netherlands

40% Netherlands

35%

South Korea

30%

Spain

25%

South Korea

South Korea

20% 15% 10% 5% 0% Watching videos

Reading blogs

Belonging to a social network

Uploading photos

Uploading videos

Podcasting

Writing blogs

South Korea

Poland

Romania

Spain

UK

Greece

Austria

Netherlands

Czech Republic

Japan

Italy

Germany

Denmark

USA

France

Hungary

Subscribing to a RSS feed

Source: According to Universal McCann, Power to the people – Social Media Tracker Wave 3 (March 2008)

29 29

The heyday of amateur photographers and videographers % of active Internet users who have uploaded photos to a photo sharing site, by country

Photos = the most popular online content created by users Wide spreading of digital cameras, increase in bandwidth, development of photo sharing sites and of storage capacities.

% of active Internet users who have uploaded videos to a video sharing site, by country

Source: According to Universal McCann, Power to the people Social Media Tracker Wave 3 (March 2008)

Video sharers = less numerous, but generally more active 21% upload videos on a daily basis 33% on a weekly basis

Italians are particularly active since 31% of them upload videos daily. At the opposite, less active users can be found in the UK and in Germany Source: According to Universal McCann, Power to the people Social Media Tracker Wave 3 (March 2008)

30 30

More photographers than videographers than bloggers, but a strong heterogeneity throughout Europe Writing blogs

Uploading photos

Uploading videos

Number of users (in millions)

% total population

Number of users (in millions)

% total population

Number of users (in millions)

% total population

Austria

0.30

7.2%

0.60

12.7%

0.50

9.2%

Czech Republic

0.62

9.5%

1.00

15.9%

0.40

6.4%

Denmark

0.30

9.4%

0.40

12.9%

0.30

10.4%

France

3.80

10.8%

3.90

10.5%

2.50

6.7%

Germany

5.20

10.7%

8.10

16.3%

6.30

12.7%

Greece

0.30

4.7%

0.60

8.5%

0.40

6.9%

Hungary

0.06

2.0%

0.40

7.8%

0.20

4.0%

Italy

3.40

9.8%

5.00

10.2%

3.10

8.8%

Netherlands

1.70

16.2%

2.80

28.0%

1.90

18.3%

Poland

1.10

4.4%

2.00

8.1%

1.30

5.3%

Romania

0.50

3.4%

1.30

9.0%

1.00

7.6%

Spain

4.20

18.2%

8.50

20.3%

3.40

13.6%

UK

4.30

12.3%

8.70

23.8%

5.70

15.6%

Total 13 EC Countries

25.78

USA

26.40

14.5%

47.10

25.9%

25.30

13.9%

Japan

14.10

18.5%

6.20

8.2%

6.10

8.0%

South Korea

9.90

30.5%

7.30

23.0%

5.90

18.6%

43.30

27.00

In blue: highest rates / in red: lowest rates Source: According to Universal McCann, Power to the people – Social Media Tracker Wave 3 (March 2008)

31 31

Users’ creativity boosted by UCC services, but already some signs of slowing down?

Examples of the vitality of content creation by users Category

Amount of content

Creation

Visitors/Trends

Video sharing

August 2006: YouTube stored 6.1 million videos (requiring about 45 terabytes of storage space) June 2007: an estimated 40 million videos on video sharing sites January 2008: Pandora TV = 2.5 million videos inventory April 2008: YouTube = 80 million videos 2012: over 160 billion videos produced in the year (In-Stat)

More than 65 000 videos uploaded daily in YouTube (June 2006) In a single month (August 2006) the number of videos on the site grew 20% In April 2008, 10 hours of video are posted to YouTube every minute!

15 000 new videos uploaded daily on DailyMotion (January 2008)

August 2006: YouTube registered ca. 500 000 user accounts April 2008: YouTube = 3.75 million user channels and 300 million unique visitors worldwide In January 2008 alone, nearly 79 million users watched over 3 billion videos on YouTube (Yen 2008) Number of videos appearing to decrease since March 2007 On DailyMotion, 800 million videos viewed by 50 million UV in January 2008 In France, 10 million of users watched more than 350 million videos, or an average 35 videos per viewer

Photos sharing

1+ billion images in photo sharing sites (Aug 2007) 2 billion photos stored by Flickr (beginning 2008) 5 billion images and videos stored by Photobucket in May 2008

900 000 new photos are uploaded daily on average in Flickr (August 2007) 3 to 5 million new photos are uploaded daily on average on Flickr (end 2007) 10 million new images are uploaded daily on average on Photobucket (May 2008)

Growth levelling off Flickr claimed more than 7 million registered users in August 2007 and 20 million at the end 2007 Flickr: 27 million UV/month in February 2007 / 42 million UV in February 2008 Photobucket: 40 million unique users in March 2008

Wikis/Knowledge sharing

7.5 million articles in all combined Wikipedia sites in approximately 250 languages (Oct 2007) In April 2008 Wikipedia consisted of over 10 million articles in 253 languages. The English edition had more than 2.3 million articles (Wikipedia 2008), i.e. 22% of all articles on Wikipedia (German= 8%, French= 7%, Polish= 5%)

Wikipedia has contributors

Growth in number of articles in English wikipedia tailed off since Sep 2006 The rate of new account registration in Wikipedia declined by 25% in 2007[1] Wikipedia has 683 million visitors per year (April 2008), wer.weiss.was has 4 million users/month (September 2007), Wikilengua 3 000 daily visitors (April 2008), Rockwiki 1 500 daily UV (1st half 2007)

over

75

000

active

Source: Wikipedia, company sites, blogs, press, etc.

[1]

http://www.techcrunch.com/2007/10/11/wikipedia-hits-mid-life-slow-down/

32 32

A poor proportion of creation in comparison to the number of visits The 20-80 rule becomes the 1-19-80 rule (source Hitwise):

1% of Internet users are creating user-generated content; 19% of users are interacting with that content; And 80% simply view that content.

Source: Hitwise US Research Note – Measuring Web 2.0 Consumer Participation – June 2007

33 33

Content creators: a limited caste of young Happy Few? Typology of the Internet users All Internet users

15-24 year-old Internet users

Inactive : 25 % Inactive : 56% Reader only : 10%

Occasional participant: 25% Reader only : 16%

Regular participant: 9% Occasional participant: 15% Occasional creator : 20%

Regular participant: 4% Occasional creator : 6%

Acti ve creator : 10%

Acti ve creator : 3%

Base : All Internet users Source : IDATE, Use-IT 2007 survey

Category

Definition

Category

Definition

Acti ve creator

Updates his/her blog at least once a week

Occasional participant

Posts occasionally comments on others blogs

Occasional creator

Updates his/her blog less than once a week

Reader only

Reads blogs but does not post comments

Regular participant

Posts regularly comments on others blogs

Inactive

Does not read blogs

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Will online videos replace theatres and home cinema?

Watching videos online has experienced a tremendous expansion in the past two years:

32% of the Internet users surveyed by Universal McCann in September 2006 and 82.8% in March 2008

The EIAA Mediascope Europe survey shows a 150% increase in the % of European Internet users watching TV, film or video clips online in 2007

A Pew Internet and American Lifestyle Project's survey shows a similar evolution:

Frequency of watching videos

• 48% of Internet users have ever visited a video-sharing site, i.e. a 46% growth year-toyear •15% used a video-sharing site the day before they were surveyed (8% a year ago)

On an average day, the number of users of video sites nearly doubled from the end of 2006 to the end of 2007.

Source: According to Universal McCann, Power to the people Social Media Tracker Wave 3 (March 2008)

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Drivers and obstacles The availability of broadband internet, digital devices, easy-to-use online editing and uploading tools, and a wide variety of UCC platforms gives users the chance to be producers.

New generations incorporate the web in their everyday life and growup with the skills necessary to take full advantage of the services on the web. They are more then willing to share skills and knowledge via the web.

There is a lack of original and high quality content which has a number of reasons: limited upload capacity of fixed and particular mobile broadband, the limited capabilities of equipment used (e.g. mobile phones) and a lack of skills of users.

Once users are able to produce high quality content, which can attract revenues, they will move away from the general UCC platforms to specialised platforms.

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Legal and Policy issues Is self-regulation the solution?

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Are users as producers still consumers?

Many rules in information law operate on the assumption that the roles of traditional, professional suppliers and users as amateurs and consumers can be clearly distinguished, and that the production and dissemination of digital content is reserved to the professional industry.

Users take over functions that so far were reserved to professional suppliers. When should prosumers be treated in the same way as professionals? Even if they have not the same legal knowledge, capacities and market power? And when should they benefit from the same privileges and rights? The law is largely silent on this question.

If users are producers and not any longer consumers, they still might require “prosumer protection”. This is particularly true for underage “prosumers”. Other fields that require attention are cybercrime, issues of data protection but also the exploitation of the amateur through UCC platforms and professional media.

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Are platforms responsible for UCC? UCC platforms are exposed to considerable threats from law suits because of the (un)lawfulness of user created content. Platforms fall in between two concepts of liability for third party content: the concept of full liability of publishers and the hosting model where liability is the exception, not the rule.

Neither model fits the case of most UCC platforms. The publisher model overburdens platforms with responsibilities they are not able to take. The hosting model ignores the active role that platforms have in aggregating and commercializing UCC. Neither model takes sufficiently into account the rights of users. The E-Commerce Directive has failed to incorporate user rights and putback procedures. Audiovisual law ignores the active user.

Should users and platforms share the responsibility for the lawfulness of user created content? One reason why the traditional publisher model does not fit the situation of most UCC platforms is that content is uploaded upon the initiative of users, not of platforms.

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Is YouTube a broadcaster?

The recent expansion of the Audiovisual Media Service Directive has paved the way for treating some UCC platforms as audiovisual media services. The consequence are strict provisions regarding e.g. advertising, European works and consumer protection.

The situation of most UCC platforms, however, is only partly comparable to the situation of broadcasters. Major differences are the active role of the user, and the lack of editorial control.

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UCC and social networks – the end of privacy as we know it?

Users value their privacy, and yet they make the most intimate personal information publicly available on the internet. Do users need to be protected from themselves, and how much?

Users who publish own personal data and the data of their friends on the internet are “data controllers” in the sense of European data protection law. Yet, European data protection law has not been written with amateurs in mind, burdening them with unproportionate duties.

Personal data is the new currency of web 2.0. Existing data protection law offers only little protection against the exploitation of personal data, in form of re-selling or “behavioral advertising”.

One blank spot in European data protection law is the protection of personal data of children. It is important to take into account the specific interests, experience, situation and behavior of minors on the internet.

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Who regulates in web 2.0?

New laws are not always the best solution to problems in web 2.0.

Users can be part of the solutions in web 2.0. Technology enables users to take a more active role in the prevention of unlawful behavior, but also in the monitoring, policing and making of Information Law. Technical solutions can be effective in addressing some problems in web 2.0. Technology, however, is no excuse to ignore fundamental rights and lawful interests. The lawfulness of technical solutions must be part of their design.

Self regulatory solutions can provide useful and important alternatives to formal regulation. An analysis of existing tools in this field demonstrated, however, that some issues are better fit for self regulation than others. Major, yet to be overcome difficulties with self regulation are the lack of adequate monitoring and compliance mechanisms, as well as the absence of users in the self regulatory process.

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