Every month, a group suggests a new thesis to enable online content proliferation and strike a balance between the needs of consumers and publishers alike. Predictably, the output is a set of guidelines or call for new guidelines, as the Center for Social Media reported today. Though well-intentioned, more guidelines are not the answer; instead, participatory media will thrive through a community that is empowered by full visibility of online video re-use and publisher web distribution policies.

Determining ‘Fair Use’ is a tough, complex problem – an issue that has caused many media companies and individuals to shy away from embracing the Internet as a distribution channel. “Recut, Reframe and Recycle” the report from the Center of Social Media out of American University examines user-generated video content and classifies usage into nine common practices that appear to be ‘Fair Use’.

Media companies and artists like Lane Hartwell have long since thrown up their hands in trying to determine which instances of re-use to allow among the thousands of copies that appear on the Internet each week. The barriers are substantial:

• The tools to locate re-use of images or video content are limited.
• Reviewing each and every copy found is burdensome.
• Contacting each site to pursue a licensing deal isn’t feasible especially without some type of filter to identify which ones can result in a new revenue source.

Visibility is the answer, and, by this, I don’t just mean a long list of the sites re-using videos across the Internet, sorted by monthly visitor traffic. This won’t help with the nine common classes of ‘Fair Use’ introduced today and will bury most publishers under an avalanche of work.

Publishers of all sizes, and specifically video producers should be able to classify each video as “Promotional” or “Premium” assigning each a set of parameters that specify the maximum duration it can be shown, the branding and link requirements plus any ad-sharing splits.

With contextual, web-wide visibility of re-use, publishers of all sizes can post their distribution policies for the community to embrace. Any mashup less than 30 seconds can be greenlighted as long as a link is provided or full copying of premium videos can be enabled as long as 40% of all ad revenue is directed to the publisher’s AdSense account.

The complexities and possibilities of what can be created are endless, but all seem like a giant step forward.