Learn from an attorney about the potential liabilities of advertising on user-generated content sites.

Advertisers who target a teenage and young adult demographic often seek to exploit the latest online phenomenon. As marketers know, the phenomenon of the moment is user-generated content and websites that feature it, such as MySpace and YouTube. Such sites enable users to post content that others can read, listen to, view and download, and both have social networking features that allow users to comment on the content. 

Some of the content that is posted to and downloaded from these sites could lead to lawsuits against the website operators, the creators of such content, and those who post the content to the site. Potential claims include copyright and trademark infringement, defamation, and invasion of the rights to privacy and publicity.

An important question for advertisers is whether they could be liable for any of these claims when they place their ads on sites featuring user-generated content, whether by making an ad buy or simply posting their ads on the sites. This article discusses theories of liability for copyright infringement and defamation, whether an advertiser could be liable for either claim, and steps an advertiser can take to reduce the risk of liability.

Next: Copyright infringement