This is the reaction we got from Radio KSCR's Jowanna Lewis at the New Media Expo when we told her about the services we provide to creators and internet users. We want to thank everyone who donated and helped NMR surpass our $5,000.00 end of year goal, especially our new
Founders and Champions. Your support provides legal services that ensure the free exchange of ideas and creativity one case at a time and through open educational resources available to everyone. We've gotten things rolling quickly this year.
Copyright WeekMonday January 13- Saturday January 18th New Media Rights will join the
Electronic Frontier Foundation in celebrating Copyright Week. Copyright Week's goal is to raise awareness of the importance of copyright law in everyday life and put a spotlight critical challenges in the digital age. At New Media Rights we'll be using the week to spotlight some of the stories of individuals we've helped to help explain copyright law's complicated impact on the free exchange of ideas and creativity in the digital age. Stay tuned to newmediarights.org as well as our
Twitter and Facebook pages for updates on many copyright issues throughout the week.New Media Rights at the MoviesDuring Copyright Week, New Media Rights is co-presenting 3 films by Southern California documentary filmmakers with the
Digital Gym and
Media Arts Center San Diego. All three filmmakers have been New Media Rights clients, and each of their films demonstrates the importance of having a balanced copyright law with a strong fair use defense through the transformation of existing cultural content. The right to reuse, analyze, and speak about the culture around us is critical to the kind of cultural introspection these films offer.
First up is a fascinating documentary with a unique San Diego story called
Children of the Stars by Bill Perrine at the Digital Gym at on January 11, 2014 and January 15, 2014. Next up, is Backyard Green Films' film
Mandolin in B made by documentary filmmaker
Rick Bowman which tells the story of legendary bluegrass musician and mandolin player Herschel Sizemore. You can see Mandolin in B at the Digital Gym Sunday January 12 or Tuesday January 14.
Finally,
Valentino's Ghost by L.A. based director
Michael Singh's analyzes a century of popular culture images and portrayals of Muslims, Arabs, and individuals from the middle east. Michael's film rose from a little known, bootstrap documentary, to qualifying for Oscar consideration for best documentary, screening at film festivals around the world, and receiving rave reviews from the New York Times, Hollywood Reporter, LA Times, and others. We'll be at the Saturday January 18th screening and will probably hold a brief discussion about fair use after the film, but come out January, 18, 19, 21, or 22 to see the film on the big screen!
New Media Rights helps shape FCC Consumer Advisory Committee recommendation on openness and transparency of consumer complaint dataIn December, the FCC’s Consumer Advisory Committee approved an important recommendation to improve the FCC’s consumer complaint data reporting. New Media Rights Executive Director Art Neill, and Legal Intern Marko Radisavljevic were directly involved in the research, drafting, and proposal of this recommendation. The recommendation encourages the FCC to improve the accessibility and transparency of consumer complaint data. Currently the FCC reports consumer complaint data on the top 5 types of complaints quarterly, in PDF form. This recommendation specifically encourages both more depth in complaint reporting data, as well as releasing data in an interactive, machine readable format that 3rd parties can use.
You can read more about their work and the proposal
here.
What you need to know about California's New Do Not Track lawThe California Legislature has been busy passing quite a few new internet laws as we’ve outlined in a few
previous blog posts. The most recent law made us pause here at NMR, because it directly affects the individuals we help everyday both in understanding and writing terms of use and privacy policies for internet users, creators, and tech startups. Privacy policies are critical tools for website creators to protect themselves from liability and try to set consumer expectations for privacy on their website. Under A.B. 370, all commercial websites that collect personally identifiable information are now required to disclose how they respond to Do Not Track signals in their privacy policy. This law impacts many sites that allow the exchange of creativity and information. Read more about Do Not Track and the new law
here.
A big welcome to our inaugural clinic class!
As part of our continued partnership with California Western School of Law we are launching our first ever formalized clinic class. As opposed to a regular internship opportunity, the clinic class will allow student interns a weekly chance to report and reflect upon their work at NMR, present on specific internet, IP, and media law topics, and interact in a discussion with their peers and professors regarding specific casework and recently decided cases in Internet, IP, or media law. The clinic class is co-taught by NMR Executive Director Art Neill and Staff Attorney Fellow Teri Karobonik. Our fall clinic class students are from left to right Brooks Allen, Christine Brekke, Elizabeth Morgan, Kristine Stcynske and Kyle Welch. You can learn more about our clinical interns here.
Value legal services for internet users and creators? Support them by clicking here.Please remember New Media Rights is an independently funded nonprofit program and relies on the support of individuals like you to provide free and low cost legal services to internet users and creators.
We accomplish a great deal on a modest budget, so any donation makes a huge impact for us.
Donate now to support legal services and advocacy for internet users and creators by clicking here.
Please also make sure to connect with New Media Rights on Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube.
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.