On July 31, 2013 The United States Department of Commerce, United States Patent and Trademark Office and National Telecommunications and Information Administration released a Green Paper on Copyright Policy, Creativity, and Innovation in the Digital Economy.  On September 30, 2013 they released a request for comments on that paper. All three offices were particularly interested in how copyright law could be reformed to better promote the growing digital economy.  The request for comments was incredibly broad and ranged from questions about the first sale doctrine as it relates to digital goods to the role of fair use in remix culture.

In our November 13, 2013 comment New Media Rights sought to address three of the most critical issues that affect the remixers, entrepreneurs, creators and internet users we work with every day. First, our comments addressed five key copyright law problems that need to be solved to help remix creators spend their time creating rather than fighting legal disputes including the current failure of 17 USC §512(f) to protect creators from content bullying. Second, we discourage the widespread implementation of intermediary licensing modeled off YouTube’s Content ID system because it is not, in fact, an intermediary licensing system. We also explain the implementation of such a system could be incredibly detrimental to users’ rights largely due to the lack of an effective appeals process and various design challenges in the system. Finally, we address the Department of Commerce’s question regarding how best to go about fashioning a multistakeholder process that would create a working set of best practices for the DMCA. We hope that our comments in these three areas will spark discussion and encourage badly needed copyright reform for the digital age. 

We've gotten off to a great start this year, providing services to over 123 individuals since January 1, giving over 6 legal basics workshops, and representing creators and consumers at the FCC's Consumer Advisory Committee.   We've shared a few highlights in our May newsletter as we head into an exciting summer for NMR!

New Media Rights will be speaking on a live webcast panel March 27 about the DMCA and its impact on artists and creators.  You can watch it at the link below  The panel is hosted by The National Alliance for Media Arts and Culture  and The Daily Dot and will be held in a Google Hangout live at 12pm Pacific, 3pm Eastern March 27.  Specifically, we'll discuss the DMCA and the various ways its safe harbor and anti-circumvention provisions affect creators directly.

Check out the full details here.