Fair Use

Fair Use Week 2019: Fair Use is an Indispensable Part of Our Economy and Culture

It's Fair Use Week 2019 this week, but every week is Fair Use Week for New Media Rights, because every day we fight for artists and innovators against legal bullies who don’t respect fair use and work to empower creators by providing them with important information on the law.

Fair use is the vehicle millions of individuals use to exercise their freedom of expression every day. That's why this week, we'll be highlighting why fair use is important to creators and what New Media Rights is doing and has done to support it. Read more

 
Submitted by New Media Rights last modified Thu, 02/28/2019 - 12:52pm

Copyright Week 2019: Modernizing Copyright & Expanding the Public Domain

New Media Rights responds to over 500 requests for legal services every year, and over two thirds of these involve copyright law.  Copyright law protects the work of these creators, but it also controls how the existing culture around us can be reused and commented upon.  That’s why it’s our mission to make sure that copyright related legal services are available to all regardless of ability to pay. This way we can assist creators who are facing unfair copyright takedowns from people who want to troll or bully them, and we can also work with artists whose rights have been infringed to get justice responsibility and without overreaching in their claims. Read more

 
Submitted by New Media Rights last modified Mon, 02/18/2019 - 6:29pm

Urban Beats works to de-stigmatize mental health issues through creative expression

New Media Rights works with a variety of different local organizations that use the arts and media to have a positive impact on their local community. One of these organization is Urban Beats, located here in San Diego.

Urban Beats is a program for Transitional Age Youth (TAY) that works to de-stigmatize mental health issues and enhance wellness through creative expression. The program also provides a space for TAY to freely express themselves, and encourages members to explore the creative arts and job opportunities within the San Diego community. 

New Media Rights Staff Attorney Erika Lee and Student Fellow Brittany Hernandez recently spoke to Urban Beats staff about copyright, licensing, and fair use.

 
Submitted by New Media Rights last modified Thu, 03/21/2019 - 12:26pm

Paul Detwiler's Documentary "San Diego's Gay Bar History" illuminates San Diego's LGBTQ history

San Diego’s Gay Bar History is a documentary by Filmmaker Paul Detwiler that traces the development of the gay bar as a community institution in San Diego. The documentary examines the role gay bars have played in community gathering and organizing during four time periods: before the birth of the modern gay rights movement, during the 1970’s, during the AIDS epidemic (1981-1990’s), all the way through their role in the present day. 

Documentaries often need a variety of legal services, from hiring a crew, to copyright, fair use and licensing, to distribution agreements. New Media Rights works with a variety of documentary and fictional video creators to overcome the legal hurdles to making their productions a reality. Read on to see to see the story of how New Media Rights helped this filmmaker.

 

Submitted by New Media Rights last modified Wed, 11/07/2018 - 4:21pm

Event: San Diego Press Club Meeting

Executive Director Art Neill will be speaking at the San Diego Press Club meeting on September 12th at 6pm. The panel is called "Nuts and Bolts: Intellectual Property – Protecting Yours and Using Others," and will include a discussion of using third party content online, protecting your own intellectual property, freelancers’ rights related to unauthorized republishing of their work, and journalists’ and media outlets’ responsibilities regarding work sourced from third parties.

The meeting is being held at the Procopio building in downtown San Diego, and the panel begins at 6pm.

Submitted by New Media Rights last modified Tue, 08/21/2018 - 5:17pm

Event: Alliance for Community Media National Conference

New Media Rights Executive Director Art Neill will be speaking at the Alliance for Community Media National Conference in Baltimore on July 12, 2018! He will be discussing copyright, fair use and licensing with Kevin Goldberg of Fletcher, Heald & Hildreth, P.L.C.

Submitted by New Media Rights last modified Wed, 11/14/2018 - 12:54pm

Event: PLI's Fundamentals of Copyright Law in the Data Era

We're honored to have been invited to speak at PLI's "Fundamentals of Copyright Law in the Data Era." Executive Director Art Neill and Assistant Director Shaun Spalding will be at the Practising Law Institute in San Francisco on July 9th, 2018, presenting during the capstone panel of the day.

 
Submitted by New Media Rights last modified Wed, 11/14/2018 - 12:41pm

New Media Rights Joins the EFF and OTW in Latest Supplemental Filing on §1201 Anti-circumvention Exemptions

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.

Submitted by New Media Rights last modified Tue, 06/12/2018 - 3:36pm

New Media Rights Testifies at the Copyright Office Hearings on § 1201 Anti-circumvention Exemptions

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.

Submitted by New Media Rights last modified Thu, 11/15/2018 - 12:26pm

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