Fair Use and the Future of the Commons, Monday, Oct. 27

With fear, uncertainty and misinformation dominating the discourse of copyright and intellectual property, Fair Use has become one of the most vexing issues in today’s academic landscape. This day-long event at USC’s Annenberg Research Park addresses these issues head-on with a series of presentations and discussions with key players in the advancement and redefinition of fair use, coupled with a faculty showcase and hands-on workshops at the Institute for Multimedia Literacy. The goal of this event is to bring clarity to questions of fair use for scholars, students and educators working with copyrighted media for research, teaching and electronic publication.

Visiting presenters include Peter Jaszi, legal architect of the Center for Social Media’s Best Practices in Fair Use guides, Eric Faden, creator of the viral Disney cutup A Fair(y) Use Tale, Eric Steuer, Creative Director of Creative Commons, who brought the world the remixable Wired CD, and Francesca Coppa, co-founder of the Organization for Transformative Works.

We believe this event will facilitate some much-needed discussion of the state of contemporary Fair Use and where we should be setting our sights for the future. The event is free and open to the public. See complete schedule below.

Fair Use and the Future of the Commons
Monday October 27, 2008
Annenberg Research Park and Institute for Multimedia Literacy
746 W. Adams Blvd

Schedule

8:30 – 9:00am Coffee + registration

9:00 – 10:00am Keynote presentation
Peter Jaszi, Professor of Law, American University

10:00 – 11:30am roundtable discussion:
the challenges of fair use
Moderator: Jennifer Urban, Intellectual Property and Technology Law Clinic / USC
Participants: Phillip J. Ethington, Center for Transformative Scholarship/USC;
Peter Starr, University of Southern California; Eric Faden, Bucknell University;
Virginia Kuhn, Institute for Multimedia Literacy / USC

11:30 – 11:45am break

11:45 – 12:45pm Panel discussion:
agents for change
Moderator: Holly Willis, Institute for Multimedia Literacy / USC
Participants: Francesca Coppa, Organization for Transformative Works/Muhlenberg
College; Eric Steuer, Creative Commons; Steve Anderson, Critical Commons/USC

12:45 – 1:30pm lunch

1:30 – 3:00pm fair use showcase
Marsha Kinder, Director of Labyrinth Project + Eric Faden, Bucknell University

3:15 – 4:45pm workshop: rip, mix + learn
Hands-on strategies for ripping, downloading, and converting video for classroom use

5:00 – 6:00pm Reception

This event is sponsored by the Institute for Multimedia Literacy and Critical Commons with support from the MacArthur Foundation Digital Media and Learning Initiative