Policy Advocacy

Our latest work on media policy and intellectual property policy.

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Copyright & Fair Use Workshop for Filmmakers and Video Creators - A Doculink sponsored event in Los Angeles Saturday November 8

New Media Rights' Executive Director Art Neill is speaking in the Los Angeles area Saturday November 8, 2014 about Copyright, Fair Use, Music Licensing, and Creative Commons.  If you're in the LA area come on out and say hello!  The event is sponsored by Doculink and the Glendale Library, Arts and Culture Department.

Click for more details about the event!

FCC Consumer Advisory Committee ends year with consumer privacy and disabled access recommendations

The Federal Communication Commission's Consumer Advisory Committee held its final meeting of the year October 20.  New Media Rights is a member of the Consumer Advisory Committee, and we are part of the Consumer Empowerment, IP Transition, and Broadband (as co-chair) Working Groups.

In our final meeting, the group passed two important recommendations,

1) Recommendation Regarding Mobile Device Security

The Recommendation Regarding Mobile Device Security provides the FCC with guidance on how it can provide leadership to ensure consumers have the information they need to make meaningful choices about their privacy, to encourage innovation in mobile device security, and to make sure companies adhere to best practices in protecting consumer's privacy, safety, and security when they are online using a mobile device.
 

2) Recommendation Regarding Access for Eligible Individuals with Disabilities to Lifeline Service

This recommendation encourages the FCC to take direct steps to make sure that the expansion of Lifeline to mobile devices includes accessible devices for the disabled.

Read more about these recommendations and New Media Rights work at the FCC Consumer Advisory Committee

 

NMR to speak on fair use & copyright law at the Alliance for Community Media Western Region Conference, October 23 in Ventura, CA

New Media Rights Staff Attorney Teri Karobonik will be speaking on a panel at the Alliance for Community Media Western Region Conference on October 23, 2014 in Ventura, CA

The topic of the panel will be "Intellectual Property, Copyrights, and Fair Use in Media"

Technology has made it increasingly challenging to navigate the world of intellectual property, particularly in media and arts. This panel will address common questions journalists and creators face such as:

  •  What kind of rights do you need to secure?
  • What is Fair Use and can anyone explain whether it applies? 
  • How do you navigate the legal issues inside of platforms like YouTube? 
  • Where can rights be obtain if needed?
  • What are a producer’s liabilities?
  • Can local bands play cover tunes?
  • Can you fight a take-down notice?
  • How much trouble can our organization be in? 

The panel will be an opportunity to give positive support to journalists and 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.

September Newsletter: Standing up for the Open Internet at the FCC!

We want to thank all of our supporters who made our #Oneof1000 celebration a success this summer.  It was nice to celebrate all we’ve accomplished as a community in person and online, and we hope to enjoy your company for some delicious tacos again soon!

 

Despite taking a moment to celebrate with clients and supporters like the San Diego based nonprofit Green Neuroscience Lab (pictured above left with their newest scientist!), our team has been standing up for the Open Internet at the FCC; writing to the President about the importance of copyright reform and an Open Internet to 21st Century innovation; appearing on This Week in Law; releasing new educational guides (here, here, and here); delivering educational workshops, and answering your legal questions.  Here’s are the highlights of what we’ve been up to!

Letter to the President's Office of Science of Technology: Net Neutrality and Copyright reform are key to 21st Century innovation

New Media Rights sent this letter to the President of the United States' Office of Science and Technology Policy in response to the White House's recent call for comments regarding updating the Strategy for American Innovation. We focus our comment on the importance of 1) protecting an open Internet through reclassification of broadband under Title II, and 2) copyright law reform for the 21st Century.

 
New Media Rights joins Sunlight Foundation in calling for openness of state legislature data

This week is Global Legislative Openness Week (GLOW), and New Media Rights has joined the Sunlight Foundation and many other public interest groups in calling on state legislatures in the United States to improve the availability and accessibility of state legislative data.

Here's the full text of the letter.  You can learn more about the letter and GLOW on the Sunlight Foundation's website.

 

3D printing patent basics
3D printing trademark basics

Trademark 101

Trademark law is intended to protect consumers from confusion related to a product’s origin. It protects not only names, logos and emblems, but also more things like characters, color schemes, and shop layouts. Trademark law does not raise as many legal questions as copyright or patent law with 3D printing, as the law is a little more clear-cut here.

Because trademark law is intended to protect consumers more than the trademark holders, merely copying a trademark without potential exposure to a consumer is not a trademark violation. As soon as consumers are exposed, you have a trademark violation. For example, a person could scan an existing Hello Kitty figurine, make modifications so Hello Kitty is positioned differently and then print the new figurine. So long as the new figurine or the CAD file is never exposed to consumers or shared on the Internet, there wouldn’t be a trademark problem with printing it. That said, because Hello Kitty is also a copyrighted character, all of the same rules about reusing a copyrighted work would also apply so although the printed Hello Kitty wouldn’t violate trademark law, it would likely violate copyright law.

Trademark law also protects “trade dress” which is separate from logos and symbols. Trade dress covers an identifying color scheme associated with the product or company. It is a good idea to distinguish your color scheme from another’s trademarked color scheme to protect consumers from any confusion, and to avoid potential infringement.

If you have any other questions regarding 3D printing and the law please don’t hesitate to contact New Media Rights via our contact form.

Ways to legally use anothers trademarked work

Trademark law is meant to protect consumer confusion as to the source of a good or service.  That said, there are some ways to reuse a trademark legally.

License To Use A Trademark

One way to use another’s trademark is to obtain permission from the trademark holder to do so. Permission from the trademark holder is ‘license’ to use their trademark. For example, Nintendo might give a person a copy of its 3D file of Mario with permission to print and sell Mario figurines, on the condition that Nintendo gets a percentage of the profits.

Nominative Fair Use Of A Trademark

Nominative use occurs when a trademark is used for its intended purpose: to properly identify the product and its origin. For example, you could include text in your 3D-printable file that says, “my phone case design is compatible with Apple iPhone 5 only.” However, include the Apple logo on your design would not be normative use and would violate trademark law.

Parody Fair Use Of A Trademark

Use of a trademark as parody requires you use the trademark in an obvious joke or commentary. There are no hard-set rules for what does or does not qualify as a parody. For example, a 3D-printable model design of Michelle Obama helping a child flatten the Pillsbury Doughboy with a rolling pin to comment on the First Lady’s battle against childhood obesity would likely be considered a parody. However, a design of the Pillsbury Doughboy just standing there eating a cinnamon roll and holding an American flag would not be a parody.

Descriptive Fair Use Of A Trademark

Descriptive fair use of a trademark occurs when you use a trademark in its literal meaning. For example, including “I came up with this model cat design after being bitten by a wild puma” in the comments of your 3D-printable file will not infringe on Puma the sports merchandise retailer’s trademark.

If you have any other questions regarding 3D printing and the law please don’t hesitate to contact New Media Rights via our contact form.

 

3D printing copyright basics
3D Printing and repairing products

Some companies have already expressed concern that 3D printing will allow consumers to repair so much of the product with at-home printed pieces, that the consumer is actually replacing the whole product for free. Unfortunately, the difference between making major repairs and reproducing the product is not clear-cut.

Patent: It is easy to imagine buying a product, scanning all its individual unpatented parts, and then using a 3D printer to print out any parts needed to repair a product at home. Not only would this be convenient for the consumer, but it would also prolong the life of the product.  Keep in mind though, that what is and what isn’t patented isn’t intuitive. Some parts that you might assume are not subject to patent protection may actually be patented.

However, many useful objects do have patent protection. Under patent law, the creator has the exclusive right to reproduce a product. However, the consumer is generally allowed to make repairs to their product but they are not allowed to recreate the patented object. The questions remains, “at what point does a single major repair or cumulative repairs equate to reproducing the product?” Unfortunately, the answer for the moment is unclear.

Copyright: If the product were copyrighted, reproducing it would be a copyright violation. However, making repairs to a copy you obtained lawfully is not. Let’s say a person purchased an art piece made of various colored sugar cubes that combined to create an image of a man’s face. Individually, the sugar cubes are not copyrighted. If a dog eats some, but not all of the sugar cubes, how many could be replaced before the owner has effectively reproduced the artist’s work without permission? The answer is unfortunately unclear.

Trademark: So long as consumers are never exposed to a reproduction of a trademark, a trademark can be copied. For example, if a person broke the lid on a standard thermos that has a Starbucks logo on it. They could replace the lid and the whole logo, so long as the lid is kept strictly for personal use.

If you have any other questions regarding 3D printing and the law please don’t hesitate to contact New Media Rights via our contact form.