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Advocacy

IDA defends the rights of documentarians to express their ideas and opinions fully (without censorship, threats or intimidation), and the rights of audiences to have access to documentary practice.

To define freedom of expression our frame of reference is the US First Amendment (in the US context) and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (in the international context). Yet our attention to freedom of expression extends beyond the actions of state actors.

IDA will address issues in the private and commercial sectors in so far as they impact freedom of expression for documentary makers including policies and practices that restrict how documentaries are made and seen.

To make IDA aware of issues that may need to be addresed, email advocacy@documentary.org


IDA Advocacy Work

(T)ERROR is a jaw-dropping film. From the first frame, it is hard to believe what you are seeing on the screen. That feeling does not diminish as the film continues; it intensifies. I was first introduced to (T)ERROR as a work-in-progress when it was awarded the Garrett Scott Documentary Development
Independent Lens and POV to stay on Mondays at 10pm On the tail of a several-month, multi-city listening tour during which leaders from PBS, ITVS, POV and WNET held town hall-style meetings with members of the independent film community, PBS today announced their new strategy to increase visibility
Last month, with the help of the UCI Intellectual Property, Arts, and Technology Clinic and Donaldson + Callif LLP, the IDA filed a lengthy comment with the United States Copyright Office seeking an exemption to the DMCA’s prohibition on “ripping” from encrypted media, which makes it illegal to
Recently, net neutrality has been front and center in an ongoing fight over free and open access to information online. Over the past year, more than 4 million Americans called on Federal Communications Commission Chairman Tom Wheeler to make sure Internet service providers would not throttle the
Last week, the USC Intellectual Property and Technology Law Clinic continued its advocacy efforts on behalf of documentary and independent filmmakers seeking reform on the issue of orphan works, copyrighted works for which the original rights holder cannot be identified or located. Many documentary
In 1988, Amnesty International organized a concert tour to mark the 40th anniversary of the United Nations' Universal Declaration of Human Rights. One of the musicians, Peter Gabriel, happened to have brought a new technological marvel with him on tour. He was using a personal video camera to record
Neither a production company nor a distributor, Working Films, the North Carolina-based nonprofit, brings media activists, educators, community groups and other social organizations together to increase the social, political and cultural impact of specific issue documentaries. For Working Films, a
This is the best and worst of times for social documentarians. Never has it been easier or cheaper to make a social documentary than today. Many a film professional will grumble, though, that it's still pretty hard to make a watchable one. No matter how cheap it gets to capture images and edit them
Guest post by recent USC Law grad Rom Bar-Nissim ’13, who was on the legal team on the brief.
Organizations urge Congress to reduce risk for independent filmmakers.