Copyright Law

Citizen Media Law Project Joins the Right to Write Fund In Protecting Creative Artists From Legal Threats

By David Ardia

Earlier this week, we announced that the CMLP will work closely with the Right to Write Fund, a newly launched nonprofit which will act as an educational repository and clearinghouse for free speech and copyright fair use issues that writers, filmmakers, professors, recording artists, and publishers encounter when moving among the worlds of print, Internet, film, the fine arts, and new media.  Right to Write will also help arrange pro bono legal counsel for artists and educators facing legal threats and help raise money for litigation support for things like expert witnesses, travel, and copying costs.  The launch of Right to Write follows on the heels of the recent decision by a federal judge in New York that author Steve Vander Ark's Harry Potter Lexicon infringed the copyright in J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter series of books.

I will sit on Right to Write's board of advisors, and CMLP will help the Fund by providing access to our database of legal threats, which contains lawsuits, cease-and-desist letters, subpoenas and other legal threats directed at those who engage in online speech.  CMLP will also offer general legal guidance on copyright and IP issues and advise the Fund on how to setup their own "clearinghouse" of legal threats involving creative artists.  Stanford's Fair Use Project also will assist Right to Write, and its executive director, Anthony Falzone, will sit on the Fund's board of advisors.

If you would like to read the press releases, you can find them here and here.

Full post as published by Citizen Media Law Project on September 12, 2008 (boomark / email).