We are thrilled to announce that we joined the Free Expression Legal Network. Supporting journalists and nonprofit news organizations has always been an important part of our work. Journalists face many of the same intellectual property, privacy, and media law issues that challenge other creatives and entrepreneurs.

The Free Expression Legal Network is a nationwide coalition of school clinics, academics, and practitioners focused on promoting and protecting free speech, free press, and the free flow of information to an informed and engaged citizenry. The creation of the network was led by the Reporter's Committee for the Free Press and Yale Freedom & Information Access Clinic.  Members work on media law, transparency, and/or access issues, either as their primary focus or as it intersects with their work on other issues. READ MORE
 

Staff Attorney Erika Lee and Student Fellow Alexandra Inman will be at the KPBS Explore Local Content Program orientation workshops on August 27th and 28th at 7pm!

They'll be speaking about what kind of legal issues filmmakers, podcasters and other content creators need to be aware of throughout all stages of production, as well as how copyright and music licensing affects production.

Over two years ago when we submitted comments in the United States Department of Commerce, United States Patent and Trademark Office and National Telecommunications and Information Administration copyright reform proceedings and again in our roundtable testimony, we advised a cautious approach that avoided the collateral damage that can come with hasty reforms. The final report takes a cautious balanced approach and shows support for many of the points we emphasized including:

• The importance of developing a flexible criterion to help judges and juries determine the amount of statutory damages awarded. Particularly criteria that: consider whether the defendant use was non-commercial, had reasonable fair use argument and the financial means of the infringer. With flexible standards Copyright Trolls are much less likely to be able to exploit small-scale defendants’ lack of sophistication and resources to extract inappropriate settlements from them. (see pg 75 of the report for some of our thoughts)
• The need for more public education on matters of copyright law, including fair use, to promote creativity.
• The creation of easy to read fair use best practices developed within specific creative communities by creators, lawyers and other practitioners working in that specific area to help creators make informed decisions about fair use.
• Recognizing the importance of having a small claims copyright court to help independent creators resolve disputes that doesn’t sacrifice important copyright safeguards, like fair use, in the process.(see pg 78 of the report for some of our thoughts)