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Martine, you testified at the last round of Digital Millennium Copyright Act hearings on fair use. Are there any current implications surrounding that testimony?

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I'm going to be, I plan on participating in the hearings which are going to be taking place May and June 2012 again for the exemption, to keep the exemption we already have and to expand it. The EFF and Peter Dechurny are asking for us to maintain the exemption (for working around Digital Rights Management protections) and for it to be expanded to include students, and they are also asking for it to be expanded to include additional media other than just CDs. These hearings will take place in Los Angeles and Washington, DC.

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Why do you feel that public advocacy is vital to composing, writing, and IP issues?

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I just want to make the point that it's pretty obvious to a lot of us that public advocacy is really important. [It's important] for us to be engaging in public advocacy and civic participation for a lot of reasons, and we should be doing this in a lot of areas and a lot of us already are. For me it's been, I think the primary reason is that, well I hope that it's benefited others. It's also been a really great professional experience for me and a wonderful learning experience.

It's informed my teaching and it's reminded me of how the role of writing and of civic participation--how these kind of activities can actually make things change. And this kind of gives me inspiration for what I'm doing in the first-year writing classroom because I know that it is possible to change things because I've actually participated with others and helped to change something on a national level. The other reason why I think that public advocacy is important, even for writing teachers, is, well, it just brings me back to the whole idea of how to make a claim and support it with evidence--which is what I'm always telling my students that they need to do and in order to do that it reminds me of all the things you need to study. You need to study your audience. You need to know the history of the conversation. And, you need to be able to see a little bit into the future. And, it's a complicated activity to go into a different kind of forum than what I'm used to on a daily basis, and be able to act properly and say something that might be effective. So, it's a continual learning experience to me.

The one comment I do want to make though is that I've come to realize--I think it's obvious if you think about it--there is a certain danger in being visible this way. There's good things and bad things. It's wonderful to be acknowledged for something you've done in a public forum, but at the same time it can be dangerous because you are more visible. But you have to decide for yourself how visible you want to be. I don't at this time want to be the Michael Moore of Rhetoric and Composition. It's tempting, but then you have a whole set of issues you have to deal with. So, that's the main thing I'm navigating right now. I'm sure this subject has been considered by many others, but I can see a benefit to supporting others, too, as well as being in the public limelight yourself, so you just have to think about what's best for you.

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