In January 2012, millions participated in the now-infamous “Internet blackout” against the Stop Online Piracy Act, protesting the power it would have given intellectual property holders over the Internet. However, while SOPA’s withdrawal was heralded as a victory for an open Internet, a small group of corporations, tacitly backed by the US and other governments, have implemented much of SOPA via a series of secret, handshake agreements. Drawing on extensive interviews, Natasha Tusikov details the emergence of a global regime in which large Internet firms act as regulators for powerful intellectual property owners, challenging fundamental notions of democratic accountability.
The New Global Regulators
By Natasha Tusikov, author of Chokepoints: Global Private Regulation on the Internet This guest post is published during the American Society of Criminology conference in New Orleans, which ends today. Search our blog for #ASC2016 to …
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