Policy Advocacy

While a person doesn’t need to register their work with the Copyright Office in order to receive copyright protection, registration provides significant benefits when copyright owners need to enforce their rights against infringers. But our current registration system is a two-tiered system. It benefits large copyright holders with deep pockets, but can be complicated, expensive, and time-consuming for individuals who produce a lot of works (like video creators, bloggers, podcasters and more).

On January 15, 2019, New Media Rights filed comments with the Copyright Office requesting modernization of the online copyright registration process to level the playing field.

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

Whether you’ve joined us as a Student or Open Internet Defender, we’re stronger than ever thanks to support from individuals like you!

If you haven’t become a Supporter, we need your support more than ever this year. Please consider joining our community of supporters by making a donation and help us continue to fulfill our mission to:

• Provide free and dramatically reduced fee one-to-one legal services to underserved creators and innovators that need specialized help with Internet, intellectual property, media, and technology law
• Defend the Open Internet and push for badly needed copyright reform.
• Create high quality legal educational materials and to educate the next generation of lawyers.

Here's the work we've accomplished with your support in 2018! Also, you'll have a chance to continue to protect fair use, net neutrality, and privacy through our upcoming Giving Tuesday (November 27) challenge with Crowdrise. We've worked hard this year to provide important legal services to hundreds of artists, creators, and innovators throughout the world. Here's a glance at some of the work we've done this year... READ MORE

New Media Rights published a 6-article series all about Freelance Contributor Agreements! No matter what type of creative professional you are, it can be difficult to make a living as a freelancer.

"But don’t be too quick to jump at an opportunity to have your written work, photos, or video published. You want to make sure before you start working with the publisher that you have a written and signed contract that outlines each party’s rights and responsibilities." The series focuses on the importance of having an agreement in place if you're working freelance and producing content.