Testimonies

NMR Testimonial: AS220

AS220 is an artist-run organization committed to providing an unjuried and uncensored forum for the arts. AS220 offers artists opportunities to live, work, exhibit and/or perform in its facilities, which include several rotating gallery spaces, a performance stage, a black-box theater, a print shop, a darkroom and media arts lab, a fabrication and electronics lab, a dance studio, a youth program focusing on youth under state care and in the juvenile detention facilities, four dozen affordable live/work studios for artists, and a bar and restaurant.

Click here to read their full story of how New Media Rights helped AS220.

NMR Testimonial: Filmmaker Michael Singh & the documentary Valentino's Ghost

"Without New Media Rights, my latest film would have been in jeopardy.  Instead, it won a standing ovation at the Venice Film Festival, and at IDFA (International Documentary Festival Amsterdam), and is designated a New York Times CRITICS' PICK.  It has also qualified for Oscar® consideration.  

But back when my team and I were obscure and struggling, I couldn't afford society prices for counsel, and needed an attorney's opinion on many fronts.  My documentary is a research/educational/study "essay film," in which several world-class experts deconstruct and analyze various images from all variety of media.  Fair Use allows us to include these short clips throughout the film.  Getting opinions on Fair Use, creating legal documents, obtaining last minute advice on strategy or bargaining situations, whenever I needed complex help or simple assistance, NMR was there for me."  

 

NMR Testimonial - The Dark Mod (Broken Glass Studios) - Stealth Gaming in a Gothic Steampunk World

We're thrilled to announce that one of our clients, the Dark Mod Team at Broken Glass Studios, recently launched the standalone version of their wildly popular open source game, the Dark Mod! Here's is a testimonial from the Dark Mod Team about how New Media Rights helped them launch their game. The Dark Mod is a completely open source, free to download and play game created by hundreds of dedicated volunteers all over the world, and bills itself as "Stealth Gaming in a Gothic Steampunk World."

It's an example of the best kind of collaborative creativity the internet enables, bringing to together, artists, designers, and programmers from across the planet to create something for the public.  Here's a quote from the Dark Mod

"In our case, they went into significantly more detail in gathering all the information and aspects of our specific issues, doing hard research on all the legal issues potentially raised, and then packaging it all into a weighty brief that not only answered our most pressing questions, but also was written in a practical way we could actually use as working developers.

NMR is in the business of assisting digital artists in getting their creations to the world in the right way. There are so many complex issues out there, that by itself the simple desire to do things legally and properly isn't enough. We need guidance. And as my original searches confirmed, I couldn't find any other group that was even looking at the questions we needed answered except NMR, to say nothing of a group willing to offer free assistance in meeting our goals, to say nothing of going to the great lengths NMR went to do it. NMR did all of these things."

Click here to read their full story of how New Media Rights helped the Dark Mod.

Testimonial: Backyard Green Films & San Diego filmmaker Rick Bowman for the film Mandolin in B

Rick Bowman is a San Diego, California based filmmaker, and a client of New Media Rights.  Rick runs a small production company, Backyard Green Films.  He creates documentaries on topics near and dear to his heart, and recently completed a documentary on musician Herschel Sizemore, a pioneer of Mandolin playing and legend in the Bluegrass world.  The documentary has been well received with some great reviews, and is now available via Amazon and screening at film festivals around the country.
 
When you create a film that includes music, you inevitably run into complicated music licensing laws.  New Media Rights provided critical legal services to make sure this film became a reality.

NMR Testimonial: Media Literacy Project

Media Literacy Project is an Albuquerque, New Mexico based nonprofit.  Through education and grassroots campaigns, Media Literacy Project works to help people become “critical media consumers and engaged media justice advocates who deconstruct media, inform media policy, and create media that reflect their lived experience.”

Sometimes government or corporate interests don’t appreciate their criticism.  Recently, New Media Rights stepped in and helped ensure they were not unfairly silenced.

NMR Testimonial: Huy Ly - Software & Web Developer

Huy Ly is an entrepreneur and the head of software and web development company Meijun, based in San Diego, California. Here, Huy shares his firsthand experience as a client of New Media Rights. Huy's testimonial highlights the difference legal services can make for tech startups & entrepreneurs early in the process of launching a new service or technology.  Huy calls New Media Rights an "indispensable asset to our development agency, demonstrating reliability, courtesy and professionalism."

NMR helps remix artist Jonathan McIntosh fight Lionsgate's Youtube takedown of "Buffy vs. Edward"

Buffy vs Edward unfairly removed

A new year brings new battles for independent creators to share their work.

Pop-culture hacker and remix artist Jonathan McIntosh (popculturedetective.com) explains in this post how New Media Rights is fighting for him in his battle with Lionsgate over the copyright takedown of his well known Buffy vs. Edward remix video.

New Media Rights is proud to be helping Jonathan fight this battle with Lionsgate over his video.  Asserting the right to make fair use of content simply shouldn't be this hard.

It is part of a bigger picture development in the world of online video.

His story, and our experience working with folks one-to-one suggests there are large media companies that intend to blindly monetize every reuse of content, even if it means steamrolling fair use and the freedom of speech. 

Read the full story to learn more.

Remember New Media Rights is a non-profit project doing this work on a shoe string budget, so if you support this work please donate now so we can keep advocating for creators like Jonathan!

 

Geek v Troll: New Media Rights stands up for the underdogs of the Internet

San Diego CityBeat, San Diego's alternative newsweekly, published a great cover story this past week about our work at New Media Rights.

It also has an amazing Street-Fighteresque illustration of a Geek punching a copyright troll. Check it out!

Read the whole story here!

NMR Testimonial: Susan Myrland

Susan Myrland, an internet user, ran in trouble when an unscrupulous advertising company recreated an old personal website of Susan's without permission, and then incorporated spam advertisements on the site. New Media Rights helped Susan respond to the abuse of her personal information and fix the damage this created, here's how.

NMR Testimonial: Michael Colin

Michael Colin is a independent documentary filmmaker.  Documentary films often reuse content that already exists, and if that content isn't in the public domain, or licensed, filmmakers sometimes need to rely on fair use under copyright law.  New Media Rights helped Michael analyze the Fair Use issues in his film.  Here's his testimonial of how we helped him.

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