Center for Social Media Co-Sponsors American Indian Heritage Month Screening of "Reel Injun"
Today, November 1st, the Office of Multicultural Affairs and the Center for Social Media are putting on a special screening of the award winning film "Reel Injun" in celebration of American Indian Heritage Month. Read more...

Film Screening of "The Interrupters" followed by Poetry Reading & Community Dialogue
Join the Center for Social Media and the Free Minds Book Club & Writing Workshop for a special screening of "The Interrupters", part of the Benevolent Media Festival. "The Interrupters" documentary film tells the powerful story of three individuals who choose to interrupt the cycle of violence they once employed in their own communities. Following the screening, esteemed members of Free Minds will hold a special reading of poems relating to the issues in "The Interrupters" to kick off DC-focused dialogue about ways to decrease violence in communities.

 Kartemquin Films Master Class & Evening Program at Hill Center
Join the Center for Social Media's Associate Director Angelica Das on November 7th for a celebration of 45 years of Kartemquin Films making documentary history at a Master Class featuring Gordon Quinn and an evening program featuring a conversation with Gordon Quinn and Justine Nagan.  Read more...

FotoWeek DC: Matt Eich - Camera as Catalyst
Join the Center for Social Media on Wednesday, November 9th at 6:30 pm in American University's Wechsler Theater for a FotoWeek DC discussion with photographer and LUCEO founding member Matt Eich. Read more...

Read more about these upcoming events in the Fair Use and Copyright section of this newsletter:

Beyond the Copyright Wars: Scholarly Challenges in Research on Balancing Issues in Copyright

What's Fair in Fair Use? at DOCNYC

And to learn more about these events, see the Making Your Media Matter section of this newsletter:

Trends in Documentary Film & Film Studies presented by Daniel Junge and Pat Aufderheide

Trends in Documentary Film & Film Studies presented by Daniel Junge and Pat Aufderheide
On Nov. 7, 7pm, at the University of Colorado at Boulder, the Center's Director Pat Aufderheide and Academy Award nominated documentary filmmaker Daniel Junge will discuss trends in documentary film and film studies. The public presentation is part of an ongoing discussion at the university on redesigning journalism, information, media and technology education. For further information, contact Christina Lefevre-Gonzalez, 303-735-5795.

Upcoming: Pat Aufderheide at the International Documentary Film Festival
The Center's Director Pat Aufderheide will be attending the International Documentary Film Festival in Amsterdam between November 18th and 22nd to discuss ethics and best practices in documentary film. Filmmakers screen, pitch and showcase both films and cutting-edge interactive media projects at the festival, which is one of the largest and most significant gathering places for international documentary filmmakers.

From Story to Movement: A Master Class with Patrice O’Neill
The Center for Social Media and American University had the honor of hosting Patrice O'Neill as the final visiting filmmaker for the 12th Annual Human Rights Film Series. Read more...

A Lion In The House: Case Study from New Center for Social Media Report "Designing for Impact"
In this case study from Jessica Clark and Barbara Abrash's new report Social Justice Documentary: Designing for Impact, we look at Julia Reichert & Steve Bognar’s documentary “A Lion In The House”. Check here for more case studies, including "Not In Our Town" by Patrice O'Neill. Read more...

Labor Film Organizers Join Forces
Labor-themed film may soon be getting a new lease on life. This Saturday, in conjunction with the DC Labor Film Fest, the first ever International Conference of Labor Film Festival Organizers took place. Read more...

Benevolent Media Festival
One year ago, Erica Schlaikjer came up with the title for her dream job: benevolent media creator. She then started a group blog showcasing storytelling and design techniques employed for social and environmental good. "I got so excited about this idea, and wondered, 'How can I take this beyond me?'" said Schlaikjer.  Read more...

Media That Matters: Screen. Act. Impact.
The Center extends a warm congratulations to Arts Engine for assembling a stellar collection of Media That Matters™ short films that engage diverse audiences and inspire them to take action. At the awards ceremony the Center's Angelica Das had the privilege of helping to present awards along with two other jury members. Read more...

What’s Fair in Fair Use? at DOCNYC
Join Center's Director Pat Aufderheide in New York on Thursday Nov. 3, for DOCNYC, the documentary film festival. Attorney and film producer Dan Satorius hosts a discussion, “What’s Fair in Fair Use?” Satorius argues that in recent years, broadcasters, distributors and errors-and- omissions insurers have increasingly accepted fair use to allow the use of footage or music without paying royalties. But too many filmmakers and attorneys still are under-using this valuable tool.

“Beyond the Copyright Wars: Scholarly Challenges in Research on Balancing Issues in Copyright”
On Nov. 8, at the University of Colorado at  Boulder, at 9:30am, Pat Aufderheide will present a talk, "Beyond the Copyright Wars: Scholarly Challenges in Research on Balancing Issues in Copyright." For more information contact Prof. Andrew Calabrese, andrew.calabrese@colorado.edu.

Econ Media Library at Critical Commons
A senior lecturer in Economics at Penn State University and author of the book Economics in the Movies, Dirk Mateer has actively exercised his fair use rights to amass a huge collection of clips from popular culture that illustrate principles of economics, ranging from game theory to opportunity cost. Mateer's website offers an impressively diverse, richly annotated "Econ Media Library," which streams embedded clips from Critical Commons. The collection has rapidly become an invaluable resource for teachers of economics and one of the largest sub-archives of fairly used media within Critical Commons.

Reclaiming Fair Use
Early reviews, blog comments and tweets about Reclaiming Fair Use have been flooding in. Check them out on the book’s Facebook page. Library Journal said that the book “deserves to be read by scholars, bloggers, documentarians, journalists, and everyone else, since we are all touched daily by copyrights." Patrick McKay, creator of FairUseTube and winner of Public Knowledge’s contest to video-respond to Google’s video on fair use, called it “a must-read for anyone interested in issues of copyright reform." Read more...

Fair Use Question Of The Month: Screen Shots and Machinima
For this Fair Use Question of the Month, an author writes in to the Center about using still shots and machinima from multi-player online role-playing games, as well as what she should do if video game companies won't respond to requests to license material. Read more...

Elisa Kreisinger’s Fair Use Video of the Month: French Democracy
In her second guest blog post, feminist video remixer Elisa Kreisinger highlights her choice for fair use video of the month. Read more...

DMCA Exemptions
It’s time to protect the hard-won fair use rights that artists, professors, librarians and online video makers won three years ago at the Copyright Office. In 2008, they successfully argued that they should get an exemption to the Digital Millennium Copyright Act’s penalties for breaking encryption to access copyrighted material, if they are accessing it for fair use purposes... But every three years, these exemptions must be renewed.

Center for Social Media Highlighted in New Report on Universities as News Incubators
A new report from the New America Foundation, Shaping 21st Century Journalism: Leveraging a “Teaching Hospital Model” has been released. It is designed to spur change within journalism education and is accompanied by profiles of the outlets of 446 journalism schools and is aimed at supporting innovations within journalism programs, including The Center for Social Media’s research into the future of public media. Read more...

Last chance! Apply for Localore by Nov. 10 to Help Reinvent Public Media
Don’t miss out on this open call for independent makers and public stations seeking to build new storytelling tools that can better represent and engage their communities.  Visit the project’s Station Runway today to see videos from innovative stations, or to submit a proposal to become a Localore producer.  Read more...

Center for Environmental Filmmaking and Filmmakers for Conservation present the 7th Annual Fall 2011 Film Series Hosted by Chris Palmer and Justine Schmidt, the film series continues in November with Walking the Talk: Environmental Filmmaker Takes her Subject Seriously, featuring Catherine ZImmerman, filmmaker and sustainable landscape designer.  On November 29th, Colliding Civilizations - Humans vs. Wildlife will feature Executive Producer Maggie Stogner and her film "Hawks in the City", as well as MFA candidates Aditi Desai and Kai Fang and their work-in-progress "Entagled". Both presentations will be at 7 pm. Read more...

ITVS Community Cinema presents Women and Girls Lead
ITVS Community Cinema presents several FREE public engagement events as part of Women and Girls Lead, a major public media initiative to support and sustain a growing movement to empower women and girls, their communities, and future generations. Screenings of the film "We Still Live Here - Âs Nutayuneân" by Anne Makepeace will occur on Sunday November 13th at 5 pm at Busboys & Poets, and Sunday November 20th at 3 pm at Washington DCJCC. For more information, please see the DC Community Cinema website.

100 Greatest TV Spots of All Time
On November 17th at 7 PM in American University’s Wechsler Theater, come see the Greatest TV Spots of All Time, a seven-decade romp through the history of broadcast advertising. Presented by Drew Babb, a Creative Director, a real-life Mad Man, who will teach Political Advertising at AU in Spring 2012. Read more...