Talk by Mike Masnick on the need for copyright reform.

This is the first of a series of events for which we invite speakers from the world of internet freedom, collaboration, open culture, research etc. We want to spark a conversation about policy for free knowledge and build a large alliance that carries the debate beyond our own network.

Michael "Mike" Masnick (born December 8,[1] 1974) is an American editor and entrepreneur . He is the CEO and founder of Techdirt, a weblog that focuses on technology news and tech-related issues. Masnick is also the founder and CEO of the company Floor64[2] and a contributor at BusinessWeek's Business Exchange.[3]

Before founding Floor64, Masnick worked in business development and marketing at Release Software, an e-commerce startup, and in marketing at Intel. He has a bachelor's degree in Industrial and Labor Relations and an MBA, both from Cornell University.[2]

He coined the term "Streisand effect" on the Techdirt blog in January 2005,[4] and was interviewed about it three years later on National Public Radio's All Things Considered.[5]

Masnick was named by Google in the Oracle v. Google patent and copyright dispute, because he has been paid to write articles by the Computer and Communications Industry Association, which Google funds as one of the members.[6] Masnick also disclosed that a series on the site was funded by Oracle and Intel, and said Oracle did not include this in their filing.[7][8]

Masnick was also seen as a major force in the fight against the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA), a bill introduced in 2011 that was broadly supported by the media and entertainment industries. As Marvin Ammori, a lawyer who advocates on internet freedom issues, put it, "I’m not sure anyone did more to educate the public about SOPA than Techdirt."[9][10]

Source: Mike Masnick article on Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mike_Masnick)