Do As I Say, Not As I Do

Lately there has been a whole lot of buzz surrounding "user" created content. Barely a day goes by the mainstream media, fascinated by their own shortcomings, fails to mention YouTube, the video file sharing service. But there is also Wikipedia, the encyclopedia written by the people. There is xTube and PornoTube-- you guessed it, adult versions of YouTube. There is even a cable television channel dedicated to user content owned partly by none other than Al Gore.

While Wikipedia is a non-profit organization, most of these sites are run as for profit ventures, and profit they do. YouTube sold for a billion and a half dollars. That's a lot of money for a site that mostly features teenage girls dancing and lip syncing to Jessica Simpson or the guy who shares your cubicle performing an air guitar solo to Aerosmith. The fact that so many of these amateur videos use professional musicians' music has lead the recording industry-- massive media companies-- to assume they either deserve the revenue generated by sites like YouTube or similar knockoffs or threaten to file suits against teenages for video taping their dance parties.

But apparently, media companies have every expectation to copy user content without compensation.

CNN.com a few months back launched i-Report, , a little user outreach program where users send in pictures or video clips that CNN might than use online. Or on TV. Or some future technology not yet invented. Its all there in the "Terms of Service" agreement:

"you hereby grant to CNN and its affiliates a non-exclusive, perpetual, worldwide license to edit, telecast, rerun, reproduce, use, syndicate, license, print, sublicense, distribute and otherwise exhibit the materials you submit, or any portion thereof, as incorporated in any of their programming or the promotion thereof, in any manner and in any medium or forum, whether now known or hereafter devised, without payment to you or any third party."

Interesting how they work that bit in there.

So while Time Warner, the parent company of CNN supports the Recording Industry Association's war on grainy, YouTube dance videos, CNN is hoping those same suckers send their own grainy photographs for use by CNN without compensation. We're left wondering: if a user submits a video to i-Report that contains music froma Time Warner artist and CNN airs that video, will Time Warner sue itself for payment?

As if that wasn't bad enough, Yahoo and Reuters are apparently turning everyone in the world into a potential reporter.

"Users will not be paid for images displayed on the Yahoo and Reuters sites."

Sure, this isn't so different from Flickr, the photo sharing site that users already flock to. Except on Flickr, users control their own content, adding and removing photos as they wish. But the new service will use editors to select photos and run them alongside news stories-- this actually sounds like Yahoo and Rueters are trying to undercut professional photographer fees.

Further adding to this point is the followup:

"people whose photos or videos are selected for distribution to Reuters clients will receive a payment. Mr. Ahearn said the company had not yet figured out how to structure those payments. The basic payment may be relatively small, but he said Reuters was likely to pay more to people offering exclusive rights to images of major events."

Indeed those payments will be 'relatively' small-- relative to what professionals would earn for the same picture's usage. Amatuers without an agent or photo agency backing them will not receive the best price for their photographs or video content, while at the same time flooding the content market with images and photographs.

While media companies might think user content is a great way to generate interest in their websites and a cheaper alternative to generating content, they ultimately are hurting themselves. First, they are making a trade off of quality for quantity. With tons of content out there at a low quality, big old meida companies lose their hegemonic control over content. Second, by using user content for little or no payment, media companies are essentially telling consumers that digital content has no value-- in essence, endorsing the free distribution of digital content. And what is music or movie piracy if not free distribution of digital content. Its easy for media companies to say "do as I say, not as I do," but considering the "piracy" war needs to win the hearts and minds of consumers as much as anything, big media is only hurting themselves.