Fair Use

On January 22, communications experts from the Department of Defense got together in northern Virginia, to share their challenges with incorporating social media. It was an honor to make a presentation on fair use. This was a knowledgeable, engaged, and (as is typical of the military) nicely diverse crowd. I learned a lot too. Read more...

At Educause's Learning Initiative conference, the tech experts at universities around the country get together to compare notes on how best to use technology to help learning. At this year's meeting on Jan. 19 in Austin, TX, members discussed with me how university copyright policies get in their way. They need fair use to be able to help faculty and students make videos for class; to help faculty understand what they can and can't put on their websites; to help librarians move productively to a digital environment. Read more...

The Washington, D.C. public interest organization Public Knowledge hosted World’s Fair Use Day on Feb. 12, providing a much-needed focus on Fair Use as a key asset of copyright policy. Read more...

The International Copyright Balance and Documentary Film Project of American University, is releasing a groundbreaking report and film on the experiences of South African documentary filmmakers with copyright clearance obligations. Read more...

Documentary filmmakers in Scandinavia joined scholars and lawyers to discuss the “clearance culture”--the custom of paying for all uses of copyrighted material in films-- in Bergen, Norway on November 18. I got to keynote the event, which was thrilling, but even better was seeing the reach of the Center's copyright scholarship. Read more...