New Media Rights published a 6-article series all about Freelance Contributor Agreements! No matter what type of creative professional you are, it can be difficult to make a living as a freelancer.

"But don’t be too quick to jump at an opportunity to have your written work, photos, or video published. You want to make sure before you start working with the publisher that you have a written and signed contract that outlines each party’s rights and responsibilities." The series focuses on the importance of having an agreement in place if you're working freelance and producing content.

New Media Rights' latest blog post is all about navigating a lawsuit, and what happens after you hire an attorney. Special thanks to our co-author, Lauren Hanley-Brady, who is one of our advisory board members, and a former NMR intern!

A lawsuit can consume vast amounts of time and money, and unfortunately is not normally something that can be resolved quickly. But the judicial process can operate much more smoothly if you are aware of what happens in the first stages and the consequences of not meeting the various requirements in the first stages of a lawsuit. The more you know upfront, the easier the path to resolution will be.

On June 11, 2018, New Media Rights joined the Electronic Frontier Foundation and the Organization for Transformative Works in filing a response to questions that the Copyright Office posed after the §1201 Anti-Circumvention hearings in April.

The Copyright Office inquired as to whether screen capture is an alternative to circumvention for educational uses of short film clips outside of the context of film studies courses. Our joint response reinforces our position that screen capture is not a sufficient alternative to circumvention for fair use of short clips of video.

On April 24, New Media Rights joined the Electronic Frontier Foundation and the Organization for Transformative Works to testify in support of a streamlined class 1 video exemption to the anti-circumvention provisions of the DMCA (17 USC § 1201).

Section 1201 outlines the DMCA’s anti-circumvention provisions that make it illegal to bypass technological protection measures (TPMs) (also known as Digital Rights Management (DRM)) that restrict access to copyrighted content. However, if the reason for breaking encryption on the content falls under an exemption to the statute, then the circumventor is relieved of liability for breaking the encryption.