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Podcast Episode: Building and Preserving the Library of Everything

Our digital future depends on our ability to access, use, and build on technology. A few media or political interests shouldn’t have unfair technological or legal advantages over the rest of us. Unfortunately, litigious copyright and patent owners can abuse the law to inhibit fair use and stifle competition. Internet service providers can give established content companies an advantage over startups and veto the choices you make in how to use the Internet. The Electronic Frontier Foundation fights against these unfair practices and defends digital creators, inventors, and ordinary technology users. We work to protect and strengthen fair use, innovation, open access, net neutrality, and your freedom to tinker.

In principle, intellectual property laws (or IP law, a catchall term for copyright, patents, and trademarks) should serve the public in a number of ways. Copyrights provide economic incentives for authors and artists to create and distribute new expressive works. Patents reward inventors for sharing new inventions with the public, granting them a temporary and limited monopoly on them in return for contributing to the public body of knowledge. Trademarks help protect customers by encouraging companies to make sure products match the quality standards the public expects.

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Creativity & Innovation Highlights

Reclaim Invention

When universities invent, those inventions should benefit everyone. Unfortunately, they sometimes end up in the hands of patent trolls, companies that serve no purpose but to amass patents and demand money from other innovators and inventors.
We’re asking universities around the country to protect their inventions from patent trolls...

Copyright Law Versus Internet Culture

Throughout human history, culture has been made by people telling one another stories, building on what has come before, and making it their own. Every generation, every storyteller puts their own spin on old tales to reflect their own values and changing times.
This creative remixing happens today and...

Creativity & Innovation Updates

The logo for Rayhunter. Image is of a purple orca who was taken a bite of cell phone signal bars.

Rayhunter: What We Have Found So Far

Rayhunter is a program that runs on a variety of mobile hotspots and watches for cell-site simulators—a tool police use to locate or identify people's cell phones, also known as IMSI catchers or Stingrays. This project is a testament to the power and impact of open source and community driven...
How to Fix the Internet - Rafael Yuste & Jared Genser - Protecting Privacy in Your Brain

Podcast Episode: Protecting Privacy in Your Brain

The human brain might be the grandest computer of all, but in this episode, we talk to two experts who confirm that the ability for tech to decipher thoughts, and perhaps even manipulate them, isn't just around the corner – it's already here. Rapidly advancing "neurotechnology" could offer new ways...

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