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It’s all about user

Thursday, 10 January 2008

Twenty two billion views for user generated video in 2007…

User Generated Video (UGV) scored 22bn views in 2007, up 70% over 2006, according to a new market report from AccuStream iMedia Research. The report, ‘UGV 2005 - 2008: Mania Meets Mainstream’, contains UGV library usage trends by month, year, content category, site and brand. Companies scrutinised include AOLUncut, Broadcaster.com, Crackle.com, Ebaumsworld, LiveDigital, Metacafe, MySpace TV, Revver.com, Vsocial.com, VEOH.com, Yahoo Video and YouTube, among others.

The report examines UGV library management, and concludes that this crucial to maintaining brand entertainment value. Almost 20% of total views generated in 2007 were delivered by videos published in 2006 or before. “With few exceptions, UGV sites large and small deftly rotated previously released videos into featured areas, introducing them to new audiences, re-introducing them to buffs, helping sustain forward view momentum while curating the latest library videos,” ventures Paul A. Palumbo, research director at AccuStream.

Yahoo Video was one of the exceptions, opting to focus almost exclusively on videos published in 2007.

Analysis of UGV sites highlights similarities and differences in expanding or evolving content category strategies, and pinpoints a number of publishing modifications taking place throughout the year. Comedy, funny, music, entertainment and ‘weird’ are popular categories on UGV sites. There is a growing presence, however, of both semi-professional and professional content inside UGV environments. Semi professional content grabbed a 47.5% total share on MySpace TV, and the Screen Bites category on Crackle.com generated a 17.5% cumulative share of total views.

The report that concludes YouTube partner channels accounted for 10.6% of cumulative site views generated over the past year.

And in other on-line video news, two US academics have warned that overzealous enforcement of copyright by content owners is threatening freedom of speech. A new, first-of-its-kind study - ‘Recut, Reframe, Recycle: Quoting Copyrighted Material in User-Generated Video’ - conducted by American University professors Pat Aufderheide and Peter Jaszi finds that many online videos creatively use copyrighted materials in ways that are eligible for fair use consideration under copyright law. In short, they are potentially using copyrighted material legally. These uses - an exercise of freedom-of-speech rights - are currently threatened by anti-piracy measures online.

The study identifies nine kinds of uses of copyrighted material: parody and satire; negative or critical commentary; positive commentary; quoting to trigger discussion; illustration or example; incidental use; personal reportage/diaries; archiving of vulnerable or revealing materials; and pastiche or collage.

“Today, user-generated video accounts for a sizeable portion of all broadband traffic. Some of these videos add value to existing copyrighted material, usually without the copyright owner’s consent,” states Aufderheide. “This kind of work is the harbinger of an emerging era of participatory popular culture.”

“New makers and copyright holders both need to understand and honour the key copyright principle of fair use,” adds Jaszi. “Owners understandably need to control improper access to their materials. But many common online uses today could comply with fair use as currently understood.”
John Williamson