User Generated Content September 16, 2011

Although there is no widely accepted definition of user-generated content (“UGC”) it may be described as material uploaded to the Internet by website users. As will be seen, the extreme popularity of UGC is relatively recent. Legal theories are still developing on when liability will attach to those that post certain types of UGC or those that facilitate or otherwise enable such posting. This paper will provide an overview of UGC, discuss a number of legal issues that relate to its use, and offer some thoughts on “best practices” to minimize liability relating to UGC.

This is the opening paragraph from the Cassels Brock & Blackwell LLP paper on User Generated Content: Recent Developments in Canada and the US. The paper highlights the legal issues surrounding blogs, video postings, Facebook and other social media and the legal issues. Many of the issue we have been flagging in our court watching posts.

Hat tip to the Slaw post that pointed to this resource.