University Film & Video Association
Join Center Director Pat Aufderheide and Graduate Fellow Katie Bieze at the 2011 UFVA conference, happening August 3 - 6 at Emerson College in Boston. Look for their panel on “Fair Use in the Classroom” on August 3. Read more...

Reclaiming Fair Use Book Launch!
Join Pat Aufderheide and Peter Jaszi for the launch of their new book, Reclaiming Fair Use, on Sep. 13 at 4:30, Washington College of Law, 4801 Massachusetts Ave. NW.  Food, friends, live music, and testimonials! RSVP to klbeize@gmail.com.

2011 Human Rights Film Series
The Center for Human Rights and Humanitarian Law and the Center for Social Media are once again preparing for the Human Rights Film Series, now in its 12th year. The Series provides a great opportunity to enhance community awareness of human rights topics, and provide the basis for a rich and thought-provoking discussion. All screenings are free and open to the public. Read more...

Eleventh Annual Media That Matters™
The Center is thrilled to be partnering with Arts Engine for the Eleventh Annual Media That Matters™ festival. Join us for the premiere October 27, 2011, SVA Theatre New York City. Panels and Workshops will take place October 28-29, 2011,  SocDoc. For more information please visit: mediathatmattersfest.org

Save the Date: Media That Matters 2012
The Center is already looking forward to the next Media That Matters conference. Save the Date for Media That Matters, Friday and Saturday, February 10-11, 2012. Check out videos from MTM 2011 on our website.

Documentary Filmmakers vs. the IRS
Documentary filmmakers across the United States should be turning their attention to the U.S. Tax Court of Arizona, where filmmaker Lee Storey awaits a verdict on whether documentary filmmaking can be considered a “for profit” endeavor. Read more...

Talks and Takeaways from SILVERDOCS
The Center’s Project Coordinator, Lauren Donia, sat in on several conference panels at SILVERDOCS and picked up a few tricks of the trade including tips on using DSLR cameras, the changing public perception of documentary and more. Read more...

More Talks and Takeaways
Innovative new panels at this year's SILVERDOCS International Documentary Conference have brought some attention to areas not usually in the spotlight, including the role of producers, the reality of broadcast, and how to approach Capitol Hill. Read more...

BAVC Producers Institute 2011
The Center’s Associate Director, Angelica Das, had the privilege of attending this year’s BAVC Producers Institute which had an Indigenous Science theme. Check out her blog posts reporting on the progress of the teams and their incredible new media innovations incubated over the course of 10 days. June 12 Update: Visualizing Change. June 14 Update: Making Things. June 21 Update: Do you have a slide for that?

Reclaiming Fair Use
What are people saying about Patricia Aufderheide and Peter Jaszi’s new book Reclaiming Fair Use: How to Put Balance Back in Copyright? Here are three examples:

"The Supreme Court has told us that fair use is one of the "traditional safeguards" of the First Amendment.  As this book makes abundantly clear, nobody has done better work making sure that safeguard is actually effective than Aufderheide and Jaszi.  The day we have a First Amendment Hall of Fame, their names should be there engraved in stone.  --Lewis Hyde, author, Common as Air: Revolution, Art and Ownership

"If you only read one book about copyright this year, read Reclaiming Fair Use. It is the definitive history of the cataclysmic change in the custom and practice surrounding the fair use of materials by filmmakers and other groups." --Michael Donaldson, Esq. Senior Partner, Donaldson & Callif, Los Angeles.

“Reclaiming Fair Use will be an important and widely read book that scholars of copyright law will find a ‘must have’ for their bookshelves. It is a sound interpretation of the law and offers useful guidance to the creative community that goes beyond what some of the most ideological books about copyright tend to say.”—Pamela Samuelson, University of California, Berkeley School of Law

Chronicle of Higher Ed Showcases Fair Use, Debate Breaks Out
When The Chronicle of Higher Education showcased Peter Jaszi and Pat Aufderheide's forthcoming book Reclaiming Fair Use, author Jeffrey Young did an excellent job of summarizing core arguments. Creators of new work—including the Chronicle’s core audience of academics—have rights to quote and re-use copyrighted material in the classroom, in their research and their publications. Read more...

No More Skeletons or Swiss Cheese: Fair Use in Open Courseware Works
What difference does a code of best practices in fair use make? Peter Jaszi and Pat Aufderheide facilitated the creation of such a code of best practices with academics who create open courseware—open-access curriculum materials that give anyone around the world access to course information from some of the best universities in the world. Read more...

Communication Scholars, Putting Copyright/Fair Use Knowledge into Practice
When Pat Aufderheide was at the International Communication Association meeting in Boston in late May,  the theme was Communication @ the Center, arguing that communication scholarship has a central role in the issues of the day.  Aufderheide moderated a lively panel discussion of how communication scholars have intervened in a major policy issue: copyright.Read more...

Fair Use Question of the Month
For this month's fair use question, a teacher working on the syllabus for an upcoming film production course is looking for tools to help him teach fair use more confidently to his students. Read more...

Watch the Winning Video in Public Knowledge's Copyright School Video Challenge
In April, Public Knowledge noticed that YouTube's new Copyright School video didn't adequately cover fair use.  They issued a challenge to the video remix community asking them to create their own response videos explaining how fair use can help video remixers legally use copyright material in their work! Watch the video...

Return of the 5 Cs
In 2009, CSM published a white paper titled Public Media 2.0, in which we identified a series of 5 trends defining a more open and participatory landscape for producers and outlets. Jessica Clark, Senior Fellow at the Center, discovered those trends, which we dubbed the "five C's," featured in this great series of graphics on a Tumblr site by Mountain Lake PBS. Read more...

New Anthology Features CSM Research
This month, a new collection of essays exploring the intersection of social justice studies and critical media scholarship is out from Palgrave: Media and Social Justice. Read more...

Indie Radio and TV Journalists: Finding Work outside Public Media
How important is public radio/TV to independent radio and TV journalists? For both public radio and TV, but particularly TV, independent producers are a critically important source of material. Read more...

FCC's Future of Media Report Takes Aim at Local News Gaps
A new FCC report draws upon research by CSM staff and fellows to examine the transformation of journalism, and the public interest obligations of media outlets. See the annotated report here for details, or read my analysis on the PBS MediaShift site. Read more...

The Interrupters in Theaters
Kartemquin Films’ The Interrupters, one of the festival hits we most closely followed last year, is now out in theaters. Check out the trailer and schedule for the screening nearest you!

NBPC Launches Original Web Series @ BlackPublicMedia.org
Because your favorite show is on hiatus until the fall, BlackPublicMedia.org invites you to dive into two intelligent web series bound to help with your summer barbecue conversation skills. Check out "Mondo Black," a creative look at Blackness from a bevy of fringe perspectives. Also watch episodes of the funny and irreverent "Black Folk Don't..." Check out new episodes every week all summer, only from BlackPublicMedia.org!

UNAFF

The 14th UNAFF (United Nations Association Film Festival) from October 21-30, 2011 Palo Alto, East Palo Alto, San Francisco and Stanford University celebrates the power of documentary films dealing with human rights issues, the environment, racism, women’s issues, universal education, war and peace. The theme for this year is EDUCATION IS A HUMAN RIGHT.

Sundance Institute News
Sundance Institute recently announced the launch of Artist Services, an initiative designed to help artists who are interested in distributing and/or funding their work independently. For Sundance Institute supported artists, Artist Services provides access to the leading online distribution portals on terms negotiated by the Institute on the filmmaker’s behalf. For the full story, please read the press release.

The Sundance Institute Documentary Film Program recently announced twenty nine Documentary Film Fund grant recipients for Spring 2011, as well as the selected Fellows for the three Sundance Documentary Labs and the Sundance Institute Creative Producing Summit, each held at the Sundance Resort in Utah. Please meet the artists by following the links.

NAPT Selected as a Participant in NTEN’s Technology Leadership Academy
Native American Public Telecommunications, Inc. (NAPT) has been selected by the Nonprofit Technology Network (NTEN) to participate in their Technology Leadership Academy. The mission of the training program is to teach nonprofits to use technology to create more social change. This training program is possible because of the generous support of Google.

The Fall 2011 CINE Golden Eagle Competition will begin accepting entries on August 1
Entries may be submitted through CINE.org or Withoutabox, and those who enter by the early bird deadline on September 1 will receive a discount. All entries are due by September 15. For more information Visit www.cine.org or call the CINE office at 301.652.8714.

ITVS Indies Showcase