Legal Advocacy

The OTW believes that fanworks are creative and transformative, core fair uses, and will therefore be proactive in protecting and defending fanworks from commercial exploitation and legal challenge. This help will not be limited to those fans or projects directly connected with OTW.

Our work includes:

Salinger v. Colting

• Amicus Brief, Salinger v. Colting (PDF); served on August 3, 2009.

The Organization For Transformative Works was asked to collaborate with the American Library Association, the Association of Research Libraries, the Association of College and Research Libraries, and the Right to Write Fund on an amicus brief in the pending Salinger/60 Years Later case. The OTW's Rebecca Tushnet and Casey Fiesler collaborated with lawyers from Stanford's Center for the Internet and Society and the UC Berkeley School of Law to produce the brief.

Petition to the Copyright Office in favor of a DMCA exemption for makers of noncommercial remix

• Comment of the Electronic Frontier Foundation (PDF, or view as HTML); submitted December 2, 2008.

The EFF applied to the Library of Congress for a DMCA exemption to allow the extraction of clips from a DVD for inclusion in noncommercial remix videos, such as fanvids, that are found to be fair use. The OTW (and many vidders) assisted in the preparation of this application.

• Reply Comment of the Organization of Transformative Works , (PDF, or view as HTML) in support of the EFF's proposed DMCA exemption for vidders and other remix artists; submitted February 2, 2009.

The Organization For Transformative Works has submitted a reply comment in support of the EFF's proposed DMCA exemption for vidders and other noncommercial remix video artists.

• OTW Response To June 22 Supplemental Questions re: DVD And Screen Capture (PDF, or view as HTML); submitted July 10, 2009.

On June 22, the Copyright Office requested further information from the OTW and other groups that testified during the DMCA Anticircumvention Hearings on May 6-8. (These hearings were designed to entertain testimony in favor of and against DMCA exemptions for educators beyond film studies professors (including K-12 teachers), documentary filmmakers, and vidders and other noncommercial remix artists.) These supplemental questions were about DVDs and screen capture software.

• Joint Supporters Response To August 21 Supplemental Questions On Proposed DVD-Related DMCA Exemptions (PDF, or view as HTML); submitted September 8, 2009.

The Copyright Office sent around a second set of supplemental questions on August 22, 2009. The OTW collaborated with the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a number of library associations (ALA, AALA, ARL, ACRL), film and media studies professors, and documentary filmmakers and their organizations, on a joint reply. We also co-wrote a separate response with the EFF specifically to address the particular needs of vidders and other remix artists; see below.

• OTW & EFF Response To August 21 Supplemental Questions, Specific To Noncommercial Video Remix Creators (PDF, or view as HTML); submitted September 8, 2009.