Microsoft Leaves Anti-Piracy Group "CreativeFuture" After Criticism of EFF's New Board Chair
takyon writes:
Microsoft Leaves Anti-Piracy Group After it Scolded EFF's New Board Chair
Microsoft has cut its ties with anti-piracy group CreativeFuture, after the group criticized the copyright track record of the new EFF board chair. This decision didn't sit well with CreativeFuture, which wrote a scathing letter arguing that Microsoft is turning its back on the copyright industries that helped the company to thrive.
In recent years CreativeFuture has been one of the most vocal anti-piracy groups. The coalition is made up of more than 550 organizations as well as hundreds of thousands of individual creators. The group lobbies lawmakers and leads the charge when it comes to many anti-piracy discussions. Its message is loud and clear: piracy is terrible and Google is enemy number one.
In recent years CreativeFuture has repeatedly pitted itself against major technology companies which it believes don't do enough to curb piracy. In this often hostile ecosystem, it found one sole tech giant at its side, Microsoft. "In an era of creative decimation perpetrated by the world's biggest technology companies, one of their very biggest made a point of joining us to stand up for copyright," CreativeFuture noted in a recent mailing.
While that sounds positive, the reason for the email isn't good. The anti-piracy coalition explains that Microsoft is the first member to ever leave the group. While the company hasn't publicly explained its motives, CreativeFuture knows why. According to the mailing, Microsoft wasn't happy with an article [archive] the group wrote about Pamela Samuelson, the new Board Chair at the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF).
[...] "Confused and hurt, we did some digging, and discovered that Samuelson and Microsoft have a long history together, going at least as far back as 2005, when Microsoft gifted a whopping $1 million to the Samuelson Law, Technology & Public Policy Clinic at UC Berkeley," CreativeFuture writes. In addition, the coalition points out that Samuelson published a paper defending Microsoft in a lawsuit against AT&T, while the tech company continued to support the Samuelson Clinic.
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