|    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 below as we head into an exciting summer for NMR! Representing internet users and consumers at FCC New Media Rights represented consumers and independent creators at the @FCC Consumer Advisory Committee Friday, April 26. The full recording of the meeting is here. The meeting covered many upcoming issues facing the incoming FCC Chairman, including an upcoming spectrum auction to free up spectrum for wireless devices, disability and rural access, as well as many other consumer issues.
Specifically, Art Neill from New Media Rights raised the issue of the Federal Communications Commission plan a few years back to launch a committee regarding the Commission's Open Internet Regulations. This committee has still not been formed, and some kind of 3rd party review is critical for consumers and independent creators to make sure that these rules are actually being enforced. You can count on us to continue to work to make sure the Open Internet rules are being properly enforced.A big thank you to Shaun Spalding
 In April long time team member and Assistant Director Shaun Spalding headed off to work on a variety of creative projects, including producing a documentary film that he's wanted to pursue for a number of years. Shaun started as a legal intern at New Media Rights in 2010, and then became staff attorney in 2011, followed by Assistant Director in 2012. Shaun has many talents, and was willing to lend them all to improve New Media Rights. Specifically, Shaun has been a force for creating over 100 successful educational videos, and providing dedicated advocacy to hundreds of internet users and creators over the years. He's also simply a great colleague. Luckily we aren't saying goodbye, as Shaun has joined our Advisory Board and will hopefully be involved with New Media Rights for years to come. A big thank you to Shaun and best wishes in his creative work!
Welcoming new legal interns!
We're thrilled to welcome Casey Lowe, Marlena Balderas, and Marko Radisavljevic as new legal interns with New Media Rights this summer. We're also excited to welcome back legal interns Jordan Kohler, Lauren Brady, and Matt Prellberg.
We are grateful to all our legal interns for their contributions to New Media Rights. We couldn't help so many internet users and creators without their hard work.
You can read bios and see photos of the whole team by visiting our Meet the NMR Staff page.     
Revamping the website!Our website recently got a pretty serious aesthetic update. We hope you find the new site format a bit easier to navigate. We'd love for you to take a look and let us know what you think. If you have comments or suggestions please send them to support @ newmediarights.org. Remember, we base our guides and videos on your input, so please let us know if you have a particular guide to suggest.ISSUE WE'RE MONITORING - Youtube Isn't Honoring DMCA takedowns?Unfortunately, New Media Rights has seen evidence in recent months that suggests that some large media companies have been able to override legitimate appeals and disputes by users regarding content takedowns on Youtube. This guest blog from Patrick McKay of the Fair Use and Youtube watchdog FairUseTube.org, explains the problem in more depth.
We're monitoring the issue closely and trying to gather additional information to help address this issue, so feel free to contact us with additional information you may have regarding DMCA counternotices that fail restore disputed content on Youtube.Upcoming Events
Alliance for Community Media Conference May 30 in San FranciscoNew Media Rights Executive Director Art Neill will be speaking on a panel at the Alliance for Community Media Annual Conference on May 30, 2013 in San Francisco, CA from 2:00pm at the Westin St. Francis in San Francisco..
The topic of the panel will be "Free Speech vs. Copyright: An Intersection or a Collision."
The panel will be an opportunity to give positive support to artists, showing them the ways the law can actually empower their creativity, how to avoid legal disputes in the first place, and how to move forward if you do face legal threats.
The conference takes place from May 29-31 at the Westin St. Francis in downtown San Francisco.Space 4 Art Emerging Artists series June 6 in San Diego
New Media Rights will be giving a talk at Space 4 Art in the East Village of Downtown San Diego. The talk will be called "Copyright, Fair Use, Creative Commons and Other Ways the Law Empowers Media Creators," and focus on the ways the law can empower artists. This event is tentatively set for June 6 at 7pm at Space 4 Art, but check the Space 4 Art website and NMR's website for more details as they become available.Useful guides - The NMR website has all kinds of guides and videos to help artists and creators, here's a few highlighted guidesGuidesHow to find free music, images, and video you can use or remix in your own creative works Thanks again for being part of the New Media Rights community. Keep an eye out as our future battles and work on behalf of internet users and independent creators continues.
All the best,
The New Media Rights team |
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In our new book, we focus on issues you may encounter from the inception of your business to the moment (that hopefully doesn’t happen) you get a nasty lawyer letter for the first time.