Policy Advocacy

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.

San Diego’s Gay Bar History is a documentary by Filmmaker Paul Detwiler that traces the development of the gay bar as a community institution in San Diego. The documentary examines the role gay bars have played in community gathering and organizing during four time periods: before the birth of the modern gay rights movement, during the 1970’s, during the AIDS epidemic (1981-1990’s), all the way through their role in the present day. 

Documentaries often need a variety of legal services, from hiring a crew, to copyright, fair use and licensing, to distribution agreements. New Media Rights works with a variety of documentary and fictional video creators to overcome the legal hurdles to making their productions a reality. Read on to see to see the story of how New Media Rights helped this filmmaker.

The New Narrative is a storytelling series started by Nathan Young in San Diego, California. The events have a theme (ie. Family, Communication, Identity, Relationships) and 6-8 speakers, with hundreds of people in attendance. The events go beyond storytelling, the goal being to "define the narrative for our lives and shape it towards the path of creating a healthier, more fulfilling, equitable, and sustainable world." New Narrative events create a community gathering space, and forum to discuss important subjects in novel and productive ways. To make such an event work, there are legal needs along the way. New Media Rights was glad to be able to provide services to the New Narrative to help draft documents and address questions that arise when hosting and filming storytelling events. Read more to learn how we helped the New Narrative make their Storytelling events and online presence a reality.

Here's what we've been up to lately:

Welcome to Our Fall 2018 Team!

This fall we welcomed our new team, including 2 returning student fellows. Over 100 students have  worked with us over the years serving internet users, artists, and small businesses. To our team both current and past, thank you!

READ MORE

New Media Rights' latest blog post is all about navigating a lawsuit, and what happens after you hire an attorney. Special thanks to our co-author, Lauren Hanley-Brady, who is one of our advisory board members, and a former NMR intern!

A lawsuit can consume vast amounts of time and money, and unfortunately is not normally something that can be resolved quickly. But the judicial process can operate much more smoothly if you are aware of what happens in the first stages and the consequences of not meeting the various requirements in the first stages of a lawsuit. The more you know upfront, the easier the path to resolution will be.