Sony Pictures Entertainment, Crackle Join UGC Content Coalition

CULVER CITY, June 16: Sony
Pictures Entertainment and its online video network, Crackle, have agreed to
support a set of collaborative principles that enable the growth and
development of user-generated content online while respecting the intellectual
property of rights owners.

Sony Pictures and Crackle
join CBS Corporation, Dailymotion, Fox Entertainment Group, Microsoft
Corporation, MySpace, NBC Universal, Veoh Networks, Viacom and The Walt Disney
Company, which together announced their support for the principles last
October.

The principles backed by
this coalition aim to help user-generated content services and creators work
together towards their collective goal of bringing more programming to more
consumers through legitimate channels. The principles acknowledge a mutual
respect for protecting copyrights and recognize that filtering technologies
must be effective and are only part of what is necessary to achieve this goal.

The principles, available
in full at www.ugcprinciples.com, call for a broad range of constructive and
cooperative efforts by copyright owners and UGC services that are encouraging
innovation, enabling new creative expression and furthering the goal of
eliminating infringing content from UGC services.

"Because we want our
entertainment to be widely available, we are working hard to deliver content to
consumers in fast, reliable and high quality ways that respect its value,"
said Michael Lynton, the chairman and CEO of Sony Pictures Entertainment. "By
supporting the principles governing user-generated content, we're helping to
ensure the growth of our business in the new-media environment. This agreement
represents a real win-win solution to the challenge of bringing the creators of
content and audiences together efficiently and effectively."

"Crackle was one of
the first user-generated content sites to adopt fingerprint filtering in 2006,
and we are pleased to join other sites and content owners in adopting these
principles," added Jonathan Shambroom, the general manager of Crackle.com.
"We're all working together to ensure an environment that will allow
creators of all kinds to comfortably share their work with the world."

—By Irene Lew