When the Protecting Lawful Streaming Act (PLSA) was signed into law in 2020, it closed a loophole that allowed streaming pirates to avoid being charged with a felony – despite the fact that every other form of large-scale piracy was treated as a felony. This loophole would have been closed... Read more

In a recent blogpost, Amazon called on Facebook and similar platforms to work more diligently to shut down the numerous trolls who swamp Amazon’s site with fake product reviews: In the first three months of 2020, we reported more than 300 groups to social media companies, who then took a... Read more

As the number of months in lockdown or semi-lockdown continues to grow, it seems that our collective screen time is following suit. Theaters across the nation are beginning to reopen, but after more than a year and a half of worldwide stay at home orders, many of us may be... Read more

Our old friend Zuck made a big deal out of the July announcement that Facebook will “invest over $1 billion to reward creators for great content they create on Facebook and Instagram through 2022.” Similar initiatives to pay for user-generated content have been launched by YouTube, TikTok, and Snapchat. “Investing... Read more

Facebook has a growing PR problem caused by its many irresponsible business practices. So they are responding boldly – by declaring they are for “regulation of the internet.” Their “Born in ’96” ad campaign is intended to convince all of us that they are a responsible company that supports wise... Read more

Back in April, the Global IP Center celebrated World IP Day with a series of virtual events. One of them – “Innovation Ecosystem: The Common Thread” – highlighted “the threads that weave the ecosystems of craftsmanship, creativity, and innovation into the societal and economic fabric that enables us to allocate... Read more

For a company that knows way too much about everyone else, Google shows shockingly little self-awareness. We were struck recently by the willful ignorance of their article “Rituals for hypergrowth: An inside look at how YouTube scaled.” The piece is written by Shishir Mehrotra, the former Google VP of Engineering... Read more

Are you a Big Tech tycoon who just found yourself in the crosshairs of another pesky federal investigation? Having trouble mastering those perfectly polite yet completely opaque statements for your Congressional hearing? Or perhaps your fibs about your toxic business model have started to lose some of their luster on... Read more

For piracy to flourish, it requires more than crafty criminals and willing users. And its impact goes well beyond the harm it does to creators. Content theft is a $2.34 billion criminal ecosystem that mirrors the legitimate world of Netflix, Hulu, and Apple+. None of this is a shock to... Read more

In April, Facebook was outed by Business Insider for leaking data from 533 million profiles to a hacker website. In crisis mode, the company sprang into action. Facebook immediately assumed complete responsibility for the disaster and executed a strong and effective action plan to mitigate damage and keep its users... Read more