Patricia Aufderheide's Posts

Librarians across the country watched as last month's long-anticipated judicial decision in the Georgia State University lawsuit came down overwhelmingly in favor of the university's fair use.

The lawsuit, brought by publishers, charged that the university had exceeded fair use in its policies on posting reserves materials for classes electronically. The judge, however, in some areas used a different logic than in the Code of Best Practices in Fair Use for Academic and Research Libraries to arrive at her conclusions. Read more...

Responding to an outpouring of filmmaker and viewer enthusiasm for Independent Lens and POV, PBS has reinstated the two programs on its core schedule. The two programs will now take the 10pm EST spot on Monday nights, prime TV programming real estate. Read more...

The Center for Social Media’s latest research report, Public Television Viewers and Public-Purpose Programming, provides new hope for public media’s future.

The study, authored by Center director Pat Aufderheide and graduate fellow Echo Xie, analyzes the responses of hundreds of public television viewers who answered an open letter  published by Kartemquin Films. Kartemquin had been alerted by a Current article on the consequences of a scheduling switch when PBS kicked two series featuring independent documentary work off the core prime-time schedule.  The article showed that Independent Lens had drastically lost viewership when its time slot was shifted to a no-man’s land on Thursday nights (when public TV stations usually program non-PBS material). Read more...

Peter Jaszi's and my new book, Reclaiming Fair Use, has been a door opening  opportunities to discuss the growing movement to employ fair use more effectively--and in the process making more and better work, as has been the Code of Best Practices in Fair Use for Academic and Research Libraries. Read more...

After hundreds of independent producers flocked to sign an open letter to PBS by Kartemquin Films, and the Independent Documentary Association endorsed the campaign, the public TV programmer has agreed to find a home on the core schedule for Independent Lens and POV. These are the two series that showcase the work of independent producers who raise issues typically under-reported in the media, reach audiences underserved by commercial media, and who experiment, innovate and take leadership in the digital transformation. Read more...