The Canadian UGC Exception: An attempt to revolutionise the Fair Use Defence for User Generated Content?

Abstract

Part I of the following piece attempts to introduce the conceptual understanding of user generated content and the copyright issues related to UGC, following which Part II will present a critical analysis of the problems contained in the Fair use defence as enshrined in the United States legislation. Part III of the research paper will try to argue as to why the non-commercial UGC exception as enshrined in Section 29.21 of the Canadian Copyright act still remains the much-needed answer which UGC has been looking for so long now, along with a few concluding thoughts. Throughout the paper, the author tries to argue that the new exception, namely the non-commercial user generated exception is the much-needed UGC protection with respect to the commercial aspect of any user created content on online platforms.