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104 Nw. U. L. Rev. 431 (2010)
YouTube, UGC, and Digital Music: Competing Business and Cultural Models in the Internet Age

handle is hein.journals/illlr104 and id is 435 raw text is: Copyright 2010 by Northwestern University School of Law              Printed in U.S.A.
Northwestern University Law Review                                    Vol. 104, No. 2
YOUTUBE, UGC, AND DIGITAL MUSIC:
COMPETING BUSINESS AND CULTURAL
MODELS IN THE INTERNET AGE
Olufunmilayo B. Arewa*
INTRODUCTION: THE RISE OF UGC  ..   ...... ........................... ........................... 431
I.  DIGITAL Music AND DIGITAL ERA BUSINESS MODELS......................................... 438
A. Digital Content, Market Signals, and the Digital Music Mess.................... 438
B.  Changing Contexts: YouTube, UGC, and Web 2.0 ..........     ....... 442
C. Black Markets, Legal Markets, and Business Models................................. 449
II.  THE DIGITAL ERA AND THE COSTS OF COPYING.................................................... 454
A.   The Monetization of Content: Revenue Harvesting and
Intellectual Property Value Mirages  .................................. 454
B.  Competing Cultural Models and Creation: Folklore and UGC.................. 460
III. DIGITAL ERA DISRUPTION: THE INTERNET AND Low COST DISTRIBUTION............ 462
A.   Technology, Copying and Dissemination: Copyright in the Age
ofDigital Reproduction.............................            463
B. Digital Era Piracy: The Meaning and Significance of
Unauthorized Uses.......................................... 466
C.  The Internet and Sharing: Digital Era Uses and Generational Shifts......... 469
CONCLUSION: ADDING VALUE IN THE DIGITAL ERA ..................................................... 473
INTRODUCTION: THE RISE OF UGC
YouTube, Facebook, MySpace, and other websites that contain user-
generated content (UGC) have become key reference points in broader de-
Associate Professor, Northwestern University  School of Law.  Email: o-arewa@
law.northwestern.edu. O 2010 Olufunmilayo B. Arewa. A.B., Harvard College, M.A., Ph.D., Universi-
ty of California, Berkeley (Anthropology); A.M., University of Michigan (Applied Economics); J.D.,
Harvard Law School. For their helpful comments, I am indebted to conference participants, Deven De-
sai, and participants in workshops at UCLA School of Law and Cardozo School of Law.

431

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