Sony backs user-generated content initiative

Guidelines have been drawn up to help user-generated content services and creators work together

Sony Pictures Entertainment and its Crackle online video network have become the latest media companies to support a set of collaborative principles governing user-generated content.

The initiative is designed to enable the growth and development of user-generated online content while respecting the intellectual property rights of content owners.

Other companies supporting the principles include CBS, Dailymotion, Fox Entertainment Group, Microsoft, MySpace, NBC Universal, Veoh Networks, Viacom and Walt Disney.

"We want our entertainment to be widely available, so we are working hard to deliver content in fast, reliable and high-quality ways that respect its value, " said Michael Lynton, chairman and chief executive at Sony Pictures Entertainment.

"By supporting the principles governing user-generated content, we are helping to ensure the growth of our business in the new media environment.

"This agreement represents a win-win solution to the challenge of bringing the creators of content and audiences together efficiently and effectively."

The principles serve as a comprehensive set of guidelines to help user-generated content services and creators work together to bring more content to more consumers through legitimate channels.

The initiative also acknowledges a collective respect for protecting copyright, and recognises that effective filtering technologies can only partly help to achieve this goal.

"Crackle was one of the first user-generated content sites to adopt fingerprint filtering in 2006, and we are pleased to join other sites and content owners in adopting these principles," said Jonathan Shambroom, general manager of Crackle.

"We are all working together to ensure an environment that will allow creators of all kinds to comfortably share their work with the world."