Summary
We want to update you, our community, on our recent successes and what the future holds for New Media Rights. Since July, we have been supported by a grant from the California Consumer Protection Foundation (CCPF).
By partnering with New Media Rights, CCPF took a leadership role in ensuring that consumers and creators have a source of assistance for the difficult questions that arise with the use of the Internet, mobile applications, and other new communications technologies. CCPF support has provided consumers / creators free, expert one-to-one assistance for digital rights issues, so CCPF should be recognized as an innovator in the digital rights field and we thank them for their support.
In addition to our free assistance, we have produced cutting edge guides addressing problems actually faced by internet users. This educational material has already reached thousands and will continue to help people for years to come. Through our policy comments on the AT&T-T-Mobile merger (here and here) and other issues, we’ve communicated the issues that independent media creators and consumers face to policy makers.
We thank the CCPF, and our many generous individual supporters for supporting this important work.
We particularly thank those who have recently supported us through our Founder’s program.
We're trying to raise $25,000 by December 31. Please help us by donating to our Founders campaign here.
For other ways to support New Media Rights, visit this page.
Assistance requests: Our core services
By December 31, we will have helped over 260 individuals since July 1.
Personal stories from individuals we have assisted
A few individuals have been kind enough to share some basic details of their stories on our website. You can read a few of these testimonials below.
Maricar Camaya - San Diego based Documentary filmmaker had questions about Fair Use and using Creative Commons licensed content.
Dan Newman - Bay Area based Government Accountability Nonprofit, MAPLight, which connects legislative votes with money contributions, had questions about copyright.
Michael Petrelis - Bay Area based Blogger whose lawful content exposing an individual pretending to be a Syrian woman blogger in Damascus was removed by a DMCA Takedown.
David Almilli - Local San Diego independent developer David Almilli fought and won against game giant Hasbro’s unwarranted takedown of his mobile application.
Policy Work
A major victory this year was being part of the efforts to stop the AT&T - Tmobile merger. We were one of the first groups to request that the California Public Utilities Commission review the AT&T - Tmobile merger. After the CPUC opened an investigation we submitted comments to the proceeding. You can read are CPUC comments here and here, and our petition to the FCC to deny the merger here.
We offered a unique perspective of the internet users and innovators we serve, illutrating how this merger would have serious effects on innovation in the wireless and mobile application space, mobile broadband access, network discrimination, telecom jobs, and consumer protection including prices and choice of wireless carriers.
Guides
We created three long-form guides and seventy-two shorter-form 1-3 page guides geared toward highly specific questions about copyright law that we regularly receive.
Below are details and links to these guides:
1. Filesharing lawsuit guide
We designed a guide for Internet account subscribers whose IP addresses have been identified in recent mass filesharing lawsuit against over 200,000 individuals.
2. Parental liability for the online acts of children guide
This guide explains liability of parents for various actions of their children online, particularly filesharing.
3. Copyright guide
We created 72+ short-form (1-3 page) guides answering specific questions that consumers and creators often have about their rights and responsibilities online under copyright law. See Addendum A for direct links to all 72 short-form guides.
Media & Outreach
We also did a number of interviews with the media, and got out into the community giving workshops at various venues including San Diego Media Arts Center, San Diego City College, Ansir Innovation Center, and The Online Media Legal Network's conference Media Law in the Digital Age.
Looking Forward
New Media Rights accomplishes so much with a small staff of two full-time employees along with a few interns, volunteers, and fellows. We are grateful to the dedicated professionals who make this organization what it is, and the individuals and organizations who support our work.
We look forward to a new year of helping hundreds of creators, internet users, and innovators make there big ideas become reality. You can count on us to be tireless in making sure that you and the millions of other internet users can preserve the internet as a venue for new voices, new ideas, and a better future.
