Mike Masnick
Michael "Mike" Masnick (born December 8, 1974) is the CEO and founder of Techdirt, a weblog that focuses on technology news and tech-related issues. ... More »
Outspoken Blog TechDirt Will Let Anyone Shut It Down For A Day
TechDirt is an outspoken blog founded by editor Mike Masnick that covers a lot of tech trends, with a heavy focus on copyright, patent reform and privacy issues. It's had a store that sells T-shirts and mugs for a while, but the site just expanded its paid options to includes some pretty ... Read more »
Panic-Inducing Rumors Over Twitter During A Hurricane Should Be Illegal
The case against criminal charges was well-argued by TechDirt founder Mike Masnick in the beautifully titled, “Being A Jackass On Twitter Shouldn’t Be Illegal; Public Shame Should Be Enough.” Masnick argues that public shaming has clearly worked, and that legal action would ... Read more »
How a Simple Press Release Reveals AT&T's Anti-Competition Hypocrisy
Mike Masnick is the CEO of Floor64. His insights into business, technology economics, and public policy inform his frequent posts to the award-winning Techdirt blog. Prior to founding Floor64, Masnick worked in business development at an e-commerce startup and in marketing at ... Read more »
The online copyright war: the day the internet hit back at big media
Mike Masnick, founder of TechDirt and one of Silicon Valley's most well-connected bloggers, remembers running through the corridors of the Senate in Washington, laptop open, desperately trying to find a Wi-Fi signal. Around him was chaos. Amid a cacophony of phones, political interns ... Read more »
Techdirt and the value of the velvet rope approach to media
The site, which is run by founder Mike Masnick through a company called Floor 64 (Full disclosure: I consider Masnick a friend) has had an online store for some time now where readers and fans could come and buy the usual type of swag many publishers offer, including e-books based ... Read more »
The Pirate Bay, Kat.ph Among MPAA's Next Targets After Megaupload Shutdown 'Success'
The MPAA’s boasts of stopping the piracy giants are a bit of a surprise, though, according to what Mike Masnick wrote on TechDirt. “The whole bit of glee over Megaupload is fairly unseemly given a few key points. First off, the absolute disaster of the case against Megaupload so far,” ... Read more »
A copyright proponent's wish for presidential debate (Q&A)
Since the publication last year of his book, "Free Ride: How the Internet is Destroying the Culture Business," which is now out on paperback, Levine has become the creative sector's answer to Mike Masnick, the noted publisher of Techdirt and a prominent critic of the entertainment ... Read more »
Where the Tea Party is right, and wrong, about tech policy
And Paul has discussed net neutrality before, as detailed here by TechDirt’s Mike Masnick. I’d argue they’re all flat wrong in the idea that government-mandated net neutrality will somehow stifle innovation and consumer choice more than will letting large carriers decide what data gets a ... Read more »
Kim Dotcom Won't Be Extradited Until The FBI Hands Over Evidence Being Used Against Him
The U.S. government is refusing the order of a New Zealand judge that it turn over evidence being used in the extradition of Megaupload founder Kim Dotcom, reports Mike Masnick at Techdirt. The FBI believes that Dotcom should only be able to see one file out of nearly 22 million emails ... Read more »
Microsoft Hounds Google for Piracy Takedowns, but Some Bing Results Remain
But as TechDirt’s Mike Masnick points out, Microsoft isn’t always so aggressive when it comes to policing its own Bing search engine. By looking at recent takedown requests that Marketly sent to Google, Masnick found that Bing still harbors some links to pirated Xbox 360 games... Read more »
SOPA sponsor Rep. Lamar Smith unveils new intellectual property bill
Or, as IPAA describes it, IP attaches would work “to advance the intellectual property rights of United States persons and their licensees…” TechDirt’s Mike Masnick, a strong and outspoken opponent of U.S. intellectual property regulation, sees IPAA and the IP attache program in general ... Read more »
Defining the 'We' in the Declaration of Internet Freedom
On a press call announcing the declaration, tech policy activist and Techdirt publisher Mike Masnick, a signatory, talked about the fact that the document was an attempt to set forth the principles of "the wider Internet community. " It makes you wonder how a project like this goes about ... Read more »
MediaShift . Mediatwits #48: Yahoo CEO Under Fire; Pros and Cons of Metered Pay Walls
... the subject, he said, \"Pay wall discussions make me want to blow my brains out.\" Be that as it may, we ended up having a lively debate between Steven Brill, creator of CourtTV and American Lawyer magazine and current co-CEO of Press+, and Mike Masnick, who runs the TechDirt blog and community... Read more »
In Boston, a Week of Amateurs Ends in a Day to Thank Professionals
In an apologia for Reddit on Techcrunch, Mike Masnick points out that both the amateur sleuths and the professional journalists made errors. And that's true, especially on CNN (and others who claimed a suspect had been arrested on Thursday) and the New York Post (which published photos ... Read more »
Telcos Lobby for New CISPA With CNN's Help Privacy Eroding Bill Gives You More Privacy, Trust Us!
Mike Masnick at Techdirt does a fantastic job eviscerating the editorial point by point. As Masnick correctly notes, nobody is arguing that "experts" shouldn't be allowed to communicate, they're arguing that CISPA effectively gives these companies and the government total immunity ... Read more »
DOJ ‘admits’ to targeting Aaron Swartz over his activism
Swartz's manifesto was “not quite as extreme as some make it out to be,” blogger Mike Masnick wrote on Techdirt. It mostly referred to material that is out of copyright, and talked about buying access to databases before releasing its contents online, he explained. “Apparently, the DOJ ... Read more »
Prosecutors May Have Wanted Aaron Swartz In Jail 'To Justify Arresting Him In The First Place'
Mike Masnick of Techdirt highlights a potential reason for the aggressive prosecution of the 26-year-old RSS co-developer and Reddit co-founder: The Department of Justice (DoJ) felt like it needed to justify bringing charges in the first place. Some congressional staffers left the ... Read more »
Will 2013 be the year copyright reformers hit back?
" The moderator, Declan McCullough of CNET, put it to another panelist who has advocated for copyright reform: Mike Masnick of Techdirt. He was more circumspect. "So, is 2013 the year of the counterattack? " asked McCullough. "Hopefully," said Masnick. "I think what needs to be ... Read more »
TechDirt schools a copyfraudster who tried to censor a critical post with copyright threats
TechDirt's Mike Masnick proceeded to thoroughly, mercilessly demolish this nonsense, in its every aspect and element, and took care to remind Human Synergistics, and its counsel, of the potential penalties for sending out baseless copyright threats. Masnick, of course, is the man ... Read more »
Publishing News: Hacking DRM is now illegal in Canada
Mike Masnick at TechDirt caught on to a story of an author helping to pirate a translation of his work. After publishing his first novel, A Young Man’s Guide to Late Capitalism, author Peter Mountford came upon a Russian reader who was seeking assistance on a forum as he attempted to ... Read more »
