Blogging

Copyright Office decision supports cell phone jailbreaking, encourages educators and remixers

Regardless of how one feels about the Digital Millenium Copyright Act (DMCA) as a whole, it’s clear that the Copyright Office's recent rulemaking process has appropriately further limited the DMCA's anti-circumvention provision. In February 2009, New Media Rights submitted comments in support of these changes that have now been enacted.

The Office's ruling attempted to clarify the DMCA's prohibition on “circumventing” digital rights management (DRM) and “other technical protection measures” -- a prohibition that, up until now, has given Apple the theoretical right to intimidate iPhone users with “jailbroken” phones with legal action. The Office ruled that this jailbreaking does not constitute violation of the DMCA. Although Apple has never prosecuted any iPhone jailbreaker under the DMCA, Apple did strongly object to any exemption to the anti-circumvention rule. This has led many general interest news sources to label these recent exemptions as a victory specific to iPhone jailbreakers which isn’t true.  The victory is a broader one, for cell phone users, video remix artists, documentarians, and educators, among others.

Let the Wookie Win: A Short History of Star Wars Litigation

San Diego Comic Con has arrived again! Although New Media Rights provides assistance to creators and internet users nationally, we are firmly rooted in San Diego and supporting local San Diego arts and culture.

Every year, Comic Con brings Storm Troopers fraternizing with Bounty Hunters back to downtown San Diego, and grown women huddled up in Tauntaun sleeping bags back to the Convention Center’s hallways.

To celebrate Star Wars Day and Comic Con returning to San Diego, and to prove learning about the law can be fun (sometimes), we present to you a short history of Star Wars trademark litigation: two cases in which Lucasfilm took people to court over Star Wars and lost.

New Media Rights files comments in FCC Future of Media proceeding

San Diego, California - On Friday May 7th, 2010 New Media Rights submitted comments in the FCC'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.

Legal guide to video releases & the use and publication of Audio and Video Recordings

This guide deals with the use and publication of recordings. Once you've lawfully obtained a video or audio recording, how you intend to use and publish the recording can effect your legal liability.

This guide addresses the question of whether or not a release wavier may be needed for certain uses of a recording you have made.

Legal and How-to Guides for Independent Creators, Internet Users, nonprofits, and small businesses

Our educational guides are organized by category and title below. We also have the Fair Use app and 150+ video guides available.  You can check out our video legal guides by clicking here!  You can also buy our new book Don't Panic, a plain language legal guide that every creator and business should have when starting a project.

New Media Rights Guides are available to browse, read and learn from. They are organized by category and title.

Webtreats Glowing Neon Social Media Icons by Flickr user webtreats used under Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 license

Best Practices for Creative Commons attributions - how to attribute works you reuse under a Creative Commons license

Find out how to cite or attribute Creative Commons work. Creative commons licenses allows you to share, remix and reuse the work legally, just make sure to check out the conditions of the license!

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

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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