Amateur Footage: A Global Study of User-Generated Content

Embedding

As the quotes in this section’s introduction illustrate, permissions around embedding social content are cause for some concern. While the terms and conditions of Twitter, YouTube, and now Facebook explain that by accepting them, the user grants permission for their content to be embedded by other publishers, there is reason for this unease. As one digital editor explained, “I think it would be much better if we had a sort of an industry standard, agreed guidelines about the legality [of embedding]. I don’t think it has been tested in a court of law and I think people are beginning to understand that you can ask two lawyers and they’ll give you two different answers.” He went on to explain how every decision to use content is a calculated risk. “So if someone got a shot of the bomb going off, I’m not going to use that without permission because frankly it could be worth tens of thousands of pounds. But if it’s nice images of people sunning themselves by the seaside, you know what, you might just take that risk a bit more.”