Microsoft, Viacom Posture On Content Sharing

The newly announced User Generated Content Principles, backed by several media companies, exhorts websites to filter content while paying lip service to fair use.

User Generated Content Principles, a set of guidelines for sharing content online without violating anyone's copyrights. Sharing through a service like YouTube should be allowed, provided it takes place in accordance with their suggested rules:

In coming together around these Principles, Copyright Owners and UGC Services recognize that they share several important objectives:
(1) the elimination of infringing content on UGC Services,
(2) the encouragement of uploads of wholly original and authorized user-generated audio and video content,
(3) the accommodation of fair use of copyrighted content on UGC Services, and
(4) the protection of legitimate interests of user privacy.
We believe that adhering to these Principles will help UGC Services and Copyright Owners achieve those objectives.

But as David Kravets indicated on a nebulous concept at best, these titans of industry could have served the Internet using public by defining what will and won't draw a DMCA notice from the UGCP signatories.

It's difficult to see UGCP as anything other than a tacit endorsement of what Microsoft wants to promote in the digital rights management space. Without a better definition of fair use, UGCP isn't of much use to anyone outside of a movie or TV studio, or a recording label. It doesn't serve the public one bit.