DMCA Exemption for Documentary Filmmakers
The Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) makes it unlawful to rip from DVDs, Blu-ray discs, and many other encrypted technologies to prevent unauthorized access to copyrighted works. The law blocks filmmakers' ability to make fair use of invaluable footage. While fair use allows us to use copyrighted footage, the DMCA restricts our access to such material. Since 2010, IDA and its Board of Directors members from the University of Irvine (UCI) Intellectual Property, Arts, and Technology Clinic and Donaldson + Callif have represented a coalition of major independent filmmaking organizations in the effort in protecting documentary filmmakers' exemption from the DMCA.
Other work
December 21, 2021Nearly three years after being deported following the world premiere of Alex Rivera and Cristina Ibarra’s The Infiltrators at Sundance, activist
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August 18, 2021*/ By Elizabeth Mirzaei and Gulistan Mirzaei We are writing this with sleepless eyes, shaking hands, and knots in our stomachs that grow tighter with
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January 29, 2021Dear Documentary Community: In 2019, many of you joined our call to federal immigration leaders to release Claudio Rojas , the protagonist of the