Intellectual Property, Arts, & Technology Clinic

New Media Rights on DMCA Rulemaking: “Significant Victories, but a Broken Process”

November 17, 2015 by UCI IPAT Clinic

Commentary on the DMCA Rulemaking process by New Media Rights:

All of this effort is required despite Copyright owners offering specious or no evidence about any harm that’s being protected by not providing exemptions. Yes, you read correctly. Advocates are spending thousands of hours asking the Copyright Office to please make exemptions for a universe of uses that are, but for the DMCA Anti-circumvention provisions, in no way illegal! As one commentator put it, the narrow exemptions are “like a manicured garden in the middle a Superfund site.”

The UCI Intellectual Property, Arts, and Technology Clinic is a core clinic in the UC Irvine School of Law's clinical program.

Law students in the IPAT Clinic work to protect civil liberties and support innovation in the digital age by advising and representing clients on a range of matters dealing with copyright, patent, privacy, First Amendment, and media law, among other areas. Clients include artists, entrepreneurs, filmmakers, nonprofits, journalists, policymakers, and others. Through this work, Clinic students gain important legal skills while examining the role of the public interest in intellectual property, media, and technology law.

In 2016, the Clinic won a California Lawyer Attorney of the Year award for its work on behalf of filmmakers and authors.

The Clinic is directed by Professor Jack Lerner. Adjunct Professor Susan Seager leads our Press Freedom and Transparency practice, and Lecturer Christina Gagnier leads our Tech Startup practice.