As you may have heard, New Media Rights recently assisted pop-culture hacker and remix artist Jonathan McIntosh (RebelliousPixels.com) in his battle with Lionsgate over the improper copyright takedown of his well known Buffy vs. Edward: Twilight Remixed video.
Jonathan's story is most interesting, because Jonathan had recently shown the Copyright Office the video in a hearing about copyright exemptions last May where New Media Rights was advocating for your right to reuse video under fair use. In one of its findings, the Office praised the video as an example of innovative fair use that copyright exemptions are there to protect.
Jonathan's battle, 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.
Due to Jonathan's compelling post, and supporting coverage from ARS Technica and people like Mike Masnick of Techdirt, we were able to resolve his issues, and now Jonathan's Buffy Versus Edward: Twilight Remixed is back on Youtube, viewable without ads. Forbes also covered this victory.
How we can keep this work going
First of all, we want to thank all of our new donors from our November crowd-funding campaign as well as those who donated in January who help continue to fund this type of work.
Between new donors and new newsletter recipients, this email welcomes nearly 250 new people to the NMR community in the last two months alone!
Despite a recent temporary groundswell of support from individuals, what we do is still not sustainable in the long term without institutional grantors.
Between new donors and new newsletter recipients, this email welcomes nearly 250 new people to the NMR community in the last two months alone!
Despite a recent temporary groundswell of support from individuals, what we do is still not sustainable in the long term without institutional grantors.
Right now, we're in search of foundation partners and institutional donors to support this work going forward. Defending independent creators and consumers against bogus legal threats is unfortunately a growing problem that has outstripped our ability to handle many of the people requesting our assistance. If you have any leads for foundations or institutional donors interested in supporting and expanding this work, please send them our way.
The recent story about Jonathan McIntosh's case is just the tip of the iceberg. We've assisted over 300 people in the last 12 months with issues, most of whom we cannot discuss due to confidentiality, but all of whom have stories just as compelling as his.
Moving forward - Youtube's Terms of Service, paragraph 4, Section H
We're about to embark on another Youtube related issue: getting some of the filmmakers, non-profits, journalists, and activists whose videos have been taken down recently due to Youtube's automated "Terms of Use Section H" violation takedowns who actually did not violate those terms of use.
This issue affected most likely thousands of Youtube users who were caught in the automated filter taking down their videos and closing their accounts, but did not violate Youtube's terms of use with bots or automated views. Over a dozen reputable cases of this came to us in December alone.
I encourage you to connect with New Media Rights on Twitter, Facebook, and Youtube to stay up to date with that issue.
Thanks again for being part of the New Media Rights community, and keep an eye out as our future battles against for independent creators develop.
All the best,
Art Neill, Shaun Spalding, and the entire team at New Media Rights
All the best,
Art Neill, Shaun Spalding, and the entire team at New Media Rights
