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New Media Rights answers questions from the public and takes media inquiries regarding the law and technology.  Please contact us if you have a question and we'll be glad to assist you. Our free legal and how-to resources, as well as our free public media studio and equipment, are supported by donations by individuals like you, so please consider donating today! Contact us for legal assistance at (619) 591-8870.

YouTube's victory over Viacom reinforces DMCA safe harbor protections for websites

Submitted by Sarah on Fri, 07/02/2010 - 12:34

On June 23, Viacom's claim for $1 billion in damages was shot down when the District Court for the Southern District of New York found YouTube and its owner Googlei not liable for copyright infringement in a much-anticipated decision. The two corporate giants have been at it since 2007, when Viacom joined with other plaintiffs including Paramount Pictures and sued YouTube, claiming that the online video service was legally responsible for copyright infringement when users posted clips of copyrighted material, including The Daily Show and The Colbert Report, owned by plaintiffs.

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New Media Rights files comments in FCC Future of Media proceeding

Submitted by New Media Rights on Mon, 05/10/2010 - 12:13

San Diego, California - On Friday May 7th, 2010 New Media Rights submitted comments in the FCCi's Future of Media proceeding. 

New Media Rights' comments to the Commission draw directly on our experience providing one-to-one pro bono legal assistance as well as a free public media studio to creators of all types.  Our work has given us the opportunity to engage with a wide variety of media makers, advocates and citizens.  These comments are also intended to supplement a conversation held between New Media Rights, Free Press, Main Street Project, People's Production House, The Transmission Project and Mountain Area Information Network with the FCC's Steve Waldman on Thursday May 6th, 2010.

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art neill's picture

Respecting the linking economy and information aggregators - part 1 of 3 online rights battles that need fighting this decade

Submitted by art neill on Sat, 04/17/2010 - 09:52

"Rainbow" shared by Jakrome under CC BY-NC-SA 2.0Intuitively, if you use the Internet even sparingly as a means of connecting you to the broader world, you'll recognize that much of the activity that takes place on the internet involves humans (and automated search engines and other services) filtering and aggregating basic facts and information.  This is so fundamental to our daily Internet use it largely goes unnoticed.  A link from search engine, a tweet, or a status update from a social media service are just a few examples.  There is huge value in helping citizens sift through the wonderful oversaturation of information the Internet offers.

There are, however, real threats to our ability to find content and navigate in our vast information ocean.  This very cornerstone of the Internet is threatened by fear, misunderstanding, and overreaching from some traditional content owners.

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art neill's picture

How service providers deny users the right to counternotify for content removed by DMCA takedown notices

Submitted by art neill on Tue, 12/01/2009 - 18:44

DMCA pic

New Media Rights recently heard from a blogger who received notification that a takedown notice was sent to their service provider, a website that hosts individuals blogs, and that the user’s content was removed.  However, the blogging service didn't

1) Identify the individual who requested the information be taken down OR

2) Specifically identify the infringing material

What's the problem?  This essentially destroys a users right to counternotify, allowing overreaching large content companies to control and remove Internet speech at will. 

Learn about the problem here, and learn how to fight back if you have content removed by a DMCA takedown notice.

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art neill's picture

Veoh triumphs over Universal Music in lawsuit on social media liability, gives lesson in the DMCA safe harbor

Submitted by art neill on Tue, 09/15/2009 - 10:31

"Jump on the Social Media Bandwagon" by Matt Hamm, licensed under Creative Commons Attribution Noncommercial 2.0. It is uncertain whether Veoh will be a major player in the future of online video. There is little doubt, however, that it has had a significant role in defining the boundaries of social media liability.

Veoh's victories against IoGroup and Universal Music have helped provide a model for social media and web 2.0 services in protecting themselves from liability.

Veoh's newest triumph is getting the district court to grant summary judgement that it is "entitled to the section 512(c) safe harbor."

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art neill's picture

Youtube puts ads on videos without permission

Submitted by art neill on Fri, 07/31/2009 - 16:57

Youtube's filtering technology may be causing advertisements to appear on content without permission.  Besides the possible contract violations, the ads create catch 22's when uploading openly licensed (ie. Creative Commonsi) content to Youtube.   Youtube could have a significant effect on the future openly licensed video content.  This is appears to be a slap in the face to open content and step in the wrong direction.

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michael donahue's picture

Trademark holders rush to secure usernames on Facebook

Submitted by michael donahue on Fri, 06/26/2009 - 11:54

Trademarki holders are rushing to protect their marks on Facebook as a result of the new "username" feature.  Facebook recently granted all registered users the right to create personalized usernames in the form of URLs (www.facebook.com/username) because it expedites the search process for individuals and businesses.  With the creation of the username, you can now be linked directly to the profile you are looking for instead of wasting time scanning thousands of search results. While it seems the username is a helpful tool, many trademark holders are worried that cybersquatters will jump on this opportunity to wrongfully register their marks. How will the new Facebook policy towards markholders affect legitimate free speech.

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michael donahue's picture

French Internet Law: "3 Strikes" and you're out?

Submitted by michael donahue on Fri, 06/12/2009 - 14:03

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art neill's picture

The AP is going stop bloggers from pirating content (or quoting in fair use for legitimate reasons)

Submitted by art neill on Tue, 06/02/2009 - 15:00

The AP says it is taking aim at "wholesale theft" with new technology that is aimed at targeting reposting of "entire articles." The new technology is supposed to simply flag questionable articles for lawyers and paralegals to then review.

The question is will the new technology be so limited, or will the AP use the technology to follow the same path it took filing DMCA takedown notices falsely characterizing the law regarding the Drudge retort's postings as follows:

"...the use is not fair use simply because the work copied happened to be
a news article and that the use is of the headline and the first few
sentences only ."

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art neill's picture

California AB 632 - misguided legislation would overburden social media and undermine user privacy

Submitted by art neill on Wed, 04/08/2009 - 12:26

The California Legislature is considering a bill from Assemblymember Davis regarding "Internet-based social networking: privacy" that is wrong for social media websites large and small, and does little to protect their users. The Assembly Committee on Arts, Entertainment, Sports, Tourism, and Internet Media passed a slightly improved version of the bill on March 31, 2009 (5 to 3), which means it is on to the Judiciary Committee, where it hopefully will be stopped.

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