Techdirt is an American Internet

blog A blog (a Clipping (morphology), truncation of "weblog") is an informational website consisting of discrete, often informal diary-style text entries also known as posts. Posts are typically displayed in Reverse chronology, reverse chronologic ...

that reports on technology's legal challenges and related business and

economic policy ''Economic Policy'' is a quarterly peer-reviewed academic journal published by Oxford University Press, Oxford Academic on behalf of the Centre for Economic Policy Research, the Center for Economic Studies (University of Munich), and the Paris Scho ...

issues, in context of the

digital revolution The Information Age is a History by period, historical period that began in the mid-20th century. It is characterized by a rapid shift from traditional industries, as established during the Industrial Revolution, to an economy centered on info ...

. It focuses on

intellectual property Intellectual property (IP) is a category of property that includes intangible creations of the human intellect. There are many types of intellectual property, and some countries recognize more than others. The best-known types are patents, co ...

patent A patent is a type of intellectual property that gives its owner the legal right to exclude others from making, using, or selling an invention for a limited period of time in exchange for publishing an sufficiency of disclosure, enabling discl ...

information privacy Information privacy is the relationship between the collection and dissemination of data, technology, the public expectation of privacy, contextual information norms, and the legal and political issues surrounding them. It is also known as dat ...

and copyright reform in particular.

Description

The website was founded in 1997 by

Mike Masnick Michael Masnick (born December 8, 1974) is an American editor and entrepreneur. He is the CEO and founder of Techdirt, a weblog. He coined the term "Streisand effect" on the Techdirt blog in January 2005 and was interviewed about it three years ...

. It was originally based on the

weblog A blog (a Clipping (morphology), truncation of "weblog") is an informational website consisting of discrete, often informal diary-style text entries also known as posts. Posts are typically displayed in Reverse chronology, reverse chronologic ...

software Slash. Techdirt's content is based on reader submissions as well as the editorial staff's picks. The website makes use of

MySQL MySQL () is an Open-source software, open-source relational database management system (RDBMS). Its name is a combination of "My", the name of co-founder Michael Widenius's daughter My, and "SQL", the acronym for Structured Query Language. A rel ...

Apache The Apache ( ) are several Southern Athabaskan language-speaking peoples of the Southwestern United States, Southwest, the Southern Plains and Northern Mexico. They are linguistically related to the Navajo. They migrated from the Athabascan ho ...

, and PHP, and is hosted at ActionWeb. Techdirt is managed by Floor 64, a company located in

Redwood City, California Redwood City is a city on the San Francisco Peninsula in the San Francisco Bay Area, Bay Area of Northern California, approximately south of San Francisco and northwest of San Jose, California, San Jose. The city's population was 84,292 accor ...

, US. As of 2009, Techdirt had eight full-time employees. There is a guest editor section in Techdirt, called "Favorite Techdirt Posts of the Week", where several high-profile personalities of politics and culture contributed articles over the years; for instance Marietje Schaake,

Member of the European Parliament A member of the European Parliament (MEP) is a person who has been Election, elected to serve as a popular representative in the European Parliament. When the European Parliament (then known as the Common Assembly of the European Coal and S ...

for the

Netherlands , Terminology of the Low Countries, informally Holland, is a country in Northwestern Europe, with Caribbean Netherlands, overseas territories in the Caribbean. It is the largest of the four constituent countries of the Kingdom of the Nether ...

, Sen.

Ron Wyden Ronald Lee Wyden ( ; born May 3, 1949) is an American politician serving as the Seniority in the United States Senate, senior United States Senate, United States senator from Oregon, a seat he has held since 1996 United States Senate special el ...

Oregon Oregon ( , ) is a U.S. state, state in the Pacific Northwest region of the United States. It is a part of the Western U.S., with the Columbia River delineating much of Oregon's northern boundary with Washington (state), Washington, while t ...

or author Glyn Moody.

Reception and impact

The popular term the "

Streisand effect The Streisand effect is an unintended consequences, unintended consequence of attempts to hide, remove, or Censorship, censor information, where the effort instead increases public awareness of the information. The term was coined in 2005 by ...

" was coined on Techdirt by founder Mike Masnick in January 2005. In 2003, '' Forbes Magazine'' selected Techdirt as one of the "Best Tech Blogs". In 2006 ''

Bloomberg Businessweek ''Bloomberg Businessweek'', previously known as ''BusinessWeek'' (and before that ''Business Week'' and ''The Business Week''), is an American monthly business magazine published 12 times a year. The magazine debuted in New York City in Septembe ...

'' praised Techdirt for its "sharp, pithy analysis of current tech issues". In 2007, Techdirt was nominated for the

Webby Award The Webby Awards (colloquially referred to as the Webbys) are awards for excellence on the Internet presented annually by the International Academy of Digital Arts and Sciences, a judging body composed of over three thousand industry experts a ...

in the section "Web Blog – Business". Techdirt has been named among the favorite blogs of ''

PC Magazine ''PC Magazine'' (shortened as ''PCMag'') is an American computer magazine published by Ziff Davis. A print edition was published from 1982 to January 2009. Publication of online editions started in late 1994 and continues . Overview ''PC Mag ...

'' in 2008. In 2015, Techdirt allowed readers to remove web ads. In 2009, English singer

Lily Allen Lily Rose Beatrice Allen (born 2 May 1985) is an English singer, songwriter, and actress. List of awards and nominations received by Lily Allen, Her accolades include a Brit Award, alongside nominations for a Grammy Award and a Laurence Olivi ...

created a blog critical of

music piracy Music piracy is the copying and distributing of recordings of a piece of music for which the rights owners (composer, recording artist, or copyright-holding record company) did not give consent. In the contemporary legal environment, it is a form ...

in which she plagiarized an entire post from Techdirt. Following an exchange with Techdirt, debating hypocrisy in the musician's handling of

copyright infringement Copyright infringement (at times referred to as piracy) is the use of Copyright#Scope, works protected by copyright without permission for a usage where such permission is required, thereby infringing certain exclusive rights granted to the c ...

, Allen shut down her blog. Marvin Ammori, a lawyer who advocates on network neutrality and

Internet freedom Internet censorship is the legal censorship, control or suppression of what can be accessed, published, or viewed on the Internet. Censorship is most often applied to specific Network domain, internet domains (such as ''Wikipedia.org'', for exam ...

, praised Techdirt in the 2011 Stop Online Piracy Act controversy, saying: "I'm not sure anyone did more to educate the public about SOPA than Techdirt."

Shiva Ayyadurai lawsuit

In 2017, American entrepreneur Shiva Ayyadurai filed suit against Techdirt for defamation in response to a series of articles critical of Ayyadurai's claims to have invented

email Electronic mail (usually shortened to email; alternatively hyphenated e-mail) is a method of transmitting and receiving Digital media, digital messages using electronics, electronic devices over a computer network. It was conceived in the ...

as a teenager in 1978, an assertion which has been dismissed by several experts. Techdirt announced its intention to fight the suit, describing it as a " First Amendment fight for its life". Masnick filed for the suit to be dismissed under California's anti-SLAPP statute. A federal judge dismissed the defamation claims on September 6, 2017. In June 2018, attorneys for Ayyadurai appealed the ruling to the

United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit The United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit (in case citations, 1st Cir.) is a federal court with appellate jurisdiction over the district courts in the following districts: * District of Maine * District of Massachusetts ...

. The two parties settled out-of-court in May 2019 with no money changing hands, and Techdirt's articles remaining online with an added link to a rebuttal on Ayyadurai's website. During the lawsuit, Techdirt accepted funding from multiple sources to expand its reporting on

free speech Freedom of speech is a principle that supports the freedom of an individual or a community to articulate their opinions and ideas without fear of retaliation, censorship, or legal sanction. The right to freedom of expression has been recognise ...

topics, including from the Freedom of the Press Foundation,

Automattic Automattic Inc. is an American global distributed company most notable for WordPress.com and its contributions to the WordPress system. The company was founded in 2005. Automattic's brands and products include WordPress.com, Akismet, Gra ...

, the Charles Koch Foundation,

Union Square Ventures Union Square Ventures (USV) is an American venture capital firm based in New York City. The firm has backed more than 130 startups, including Twitter, Etsy, Stripe, Coinbase, Zynga, Tumblr, Stack Overflow, Meetup, Kickstarter, MongoDB, ...

, and Craig Newmark.

Other work

In 2012, Techdirt published a report on the state of the entertainment industry, arguing that despite the rise of online file sharing, the music industry and broader entertainment industry were still able to make significant money. In 2018, Techdirt and Diegetic Games ran a

Kickstarter Kickstarter, PBC is an American Benefit corporation, public benefit corporation based in Brooklyn, New York City, that maintains a global crowdfunding platform focused on creativity. The company's stated mission is to "help bring creative project ...

campaign to publish a version of a CIA training card game that had been released to the public after a FOIA request. Masnick and Techdirt run a

think tank A think tank, or public policy institute, is a research institute that performs research and advocacy concerning topics such as social policy, political strategy, economics, military, technology, and culture. Most think tanks are non-governme ...

called Copia, which has received funding from companies such as

Google Google LLC (, ) is an American multinational corporation and technology company focusing on online advertising, search engine technology, cloud computing, computer software, quantum computing, e-commerce, consumer electronics, and artificial ...

and Yelp. Through this effort, Masnick has worked on multiple policy-focused video games, including '' Moderator Mayhem'', a game focused on content moderation, and a followup titled ''Trust & Safety Tycoon''. The site has organized an annual game jam, wherein developers are tasked with developing games that are derivative works of works that had entered the public domain in the United States upon the beginning of the year.

References

External links

* {{Official website, techdirt.com American technology news websites Internet properties established in 1997