Beneath the Blindfold
By Documentary Film Program • January 31, 2012 at 1:02 pm
FOUR SURVIVORS, ONE TRUTH
THIS SHOULD NOT HAPPEN TO ANYONE Read more » about Beneath the Blindfold
A healthy copyright system must balance the need to provide strong economic incentives through exclusive rights with the need to protect important public interests like free speech and expression. Fair use is foundational to that balance. It's role is to prevent copyright from stifling the creativity it is supposed to foster, and from imposing other burdens that would inhibit rather than promote the creation and spread of knowledge and learning.
The Fair Use Project (FUP) was founded in 2006 to provide legal support to a range of projects designed to clarify, and extend, the boundaries of fair use in order to enhance creative freedom and protect important public rights. It is the only organization in the country dedicated specifically to providing free and comprehensive legal representation to authors, filmmakers, artists, musicians and other content creators who face unmerited copyright claims, or other improper restrictions on their expressive interests. The FUP has litigated important cases across the country, and in the Supreme Court of the United States, and worked with scores of filmmakers and other content creators to secure the unimpeded release of their work.
By Documentary Film Program • January 31, 2012 at 1:02 pm
FOUR SURVIVORS, ONE TRUTH
THIS SHOULD NOT HAPPEN TO ANYONE Read more » about Beneath the Blindfold
By Documentary Film Program • January 31, 2012 at 12:59 pm
In 1991, Cameron Todd Willingham’s three daughters died in a Corsicana, Texas house fire. Tried and convicted for their arson murders, Willingham spent twelve years on death row, and was executed despite overwhelming expert criticism of the prosecution’s arson evidence. Today, Willingham's name has become a call for reform in the field of forensics and a rallying cry for the anti-death penalty movement; yet he remains an indisputable "monster" in the eyes of Texas Governor Rick Perry, who ignored the science that could have saved Willingham’s life. Read more » about INCENDIARY: The Willingham Case
By Documentary Film Program • January 31, 2012 at 12:55 pm
The husband-and-wife team of Charles and Ray Eames are widely regarded as America’s most important designers. Perhaps best remembered for their mid-century plywood and fiberglass furniture, the Eames Office also created a mind-bending variety of other products, from splints for wounded military during World War II, to photography, interiors, multi-media exhibits, graphics, games, films and toys. But their personal lives and influence on significant events in American life – from the development of modernism, to the rise of the computer age – has been less widely understood. Read more » about Eames: The Architect and the Painter
By Documentary Film Program • January 31, 2012 at 12:47 pm
Casablanca Mon Amour is a modern road movie that encapsulates the more complex and fractured nature of living in a world where TV and wars compete for headlines and occupy imaginations.
Using movies as a road map between yesterday’s Hollywood and today’s Morocco, Casablanca Mon Amour offers a Moroccan perspective on the long and entwined relationship between Hollywood and The Arab/Muslim World. Read more » about Casablanca Mon Amour
Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals holding that the URAA does not violate our clients' First Amendment rights. Read more » about Golan v. Holder - Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals Order
The Second Circuit affirmed the district court’s dismissal of the case on summary judgment and the award of $175,000 in attorneys' fees to BT. Read more » about Vargas v. BT - Second Circuit Summary Order
We filed an amicus brief in the Federal Circuit on behalf of the Warhol Foundation and Warhol Museum, contemporary artists and law professors in support of the U.S. Postal Service, urging affirmance of the district court’s finding of fair use. Read more » about Gaylord v. U.S. Postal Service
We defended the publisher of the Harry Potter Lexicon against suit from J.K. Rowling and Warner Brothers. Read more » about Rowling v. RDR Books
Yoko Ono and EMI sued a documentary filmmaker for using a short clip from the John Lennon song “Imagine” as part of a critique of the lyrics of the song. We defended the filmmaker and successfully argued that the use of the copyrighted song was fair use. Read more » about Lennon v. Premise Media
In this case, two archives challenged statutes that extended copyright terms unconditionally—the Copyright Renewal Act and the Copyright Term Extension Act (CTEA)—as unconstitutional under Copyright Clause and the First Amendment. Read more » about Kahle v. Gonzales
Anthony Falzone, Executive Director of the Fair Use Project, along with Larry Kramer, Mark Lemley, Richard Epstein, Peter Thiel and Ted Ullyot in the Federalist Society's panel "Effect of Regulation on Technology & Innovation. Read more » about Effect of Regulation on Technology & Innovation
Anthony Falzone suggests that the defendants’ decision not to assert fair use may have been strategic: “Combs and his label can afford to pay for samples. Many aspiring artists and their fledgling labels—the next generation of would-be moguls hungry to unseat Diddy—cannot.” Read more » about Copyfraud: Techdirt Book Club Selection For April, Part Two
CIS Affiliate Scholar David Levine will be speaking on a panel at UNC about online privacy. Read more » about Searching for a Middle Ground: Can We Stop Online Piracy While Still Protecting Speech?
Copyright Law and Fair Use with Daniel Nazer, CIS Resident Fellow Read more » about Transformation, Copyright, and the Right of Publicity in the Digital Age
Join us for an evening conversation with CIS Executive Director of the Fair Use Project Anthony Falzone and Congressman Darrell Issa where they will discuss topics about SOPA, PIPA and internet freedom. Read more » about SOPA, PIPA and Internet Freedom Where Do We Go From Here?
Watch a screening of Documentary Film Program participant, Our Summer in Tehran. Read more » about Screening of Our Summer In Tehran
May 10, 2013
Hosts: Denise Howell and Evan Brown
Prenda, Paramount product placement, technology legislation, and more.
Guests: Polk Wagner and Julie Ahrens.
Download or subscribe to this show at twit.tv/twil. Read more » about This Week in Law - Episode 210: Into the Prenda Darkness
March 13, 2013
CIS Affiliate Scholar David Levine interviews Dave Seubert, head of the University of California Santa Barbara’s Cylinder Digitization and Preservation Project. Read more » about Dave Seubert - Hearsay Culture - Show #181 - KZSU-FM
November 16, 2012
During late 2011 and January 2012, millions of people protested the passage of the controversial copyright bill the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) in Congress. The protests culminated in the largest online protest in the history of the Internet, with web giant Wikipedia and thousands of other websites going black in a day of self-censorship. Read more » about Stopping SOPA - Copyright, Free Speech, and Popular Constitutionalism (Video)
November 6, 2012
The extent to which internet intermediaries such as Facebook and Google should be liable for unlawful content on the internet is currently facing a great deal of scrutiny in Europe. Like in the US, internet intermediaries in Europe are expected to assist in the prevention of copyright infringement. However, they do not have the wide protection against defamation and privacy claims provided by section 230 of the Communications Decency Act 1996 in the US. Over the last few years, they have therefore found themselves being named in lawsuits in respect of user-generated content. Read more » about Intermediary Liability on the Internet - Ashley Hurst - Video