I stumbled across this really great website when I was reading about the legal battles Uber is facing right now! I suggest reading this article: http://www.fastcolabs.com/3028547/investors-say-lawbreakers-like-airbnb-aereo-and-uber-are-increasingly-worth-the-legal-bills

It highlights several of the themes we’ve discussed in this class so far: disruptive innovation; the tension between lawyers and entrepreneurs; the Napster lawsuit, etc. It’s really a great article now that we’re 9+ weeks into the class

A nice follow-up article to today’s class and our end thought on how law and innovation intersect.

http://www.multichannel.com/blogs/mcn-guest-blog/legislators-say-law-revamp-key-tech-innovation

http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702303546204579435473953788430

This is a really interesting article about how entrepreneurs are looking over the farm bill to find innovative ways to make money and start business. One of the cooler ideas is one to sell fresh produce online to people who receive food stamps.

This article summarizes the holdings of the Grokster, Sony, and Napster cases, and discusses how the court differentiated the cases in order to reach a conclusion.  The Supreme Court held that Sony was not liable for damages of contributory copyright infringement, ruling that where a product may be used for “substantial” or “commercially significant noninfringing uses,” it was not liable for infringement. On the other hand, Napster was different because it actually provided a network for the infringement to take place. The parties in Groskster eventually came to an agreement in which Grokster agreed to immediately discontinue its former business operations, and agreed to have a judgment and a permanent injunction entered against it in favor of the plaintiffs.

http://internetlaw.uslegal.com/piracy-and-file-sharing/after-napster/grokster/

Interesting blog post on “public entrepreneurship” by MItchell Weiss with the Harvard Business Review. I would challenge Weiss’ assertion that public leaders can truly act as entrepreneurs. Weiss believes that public entrepreneurs face the same predicament as any other entrepreneur, mainly in that they face substantial risk in pursuing a new opportunity and that it is difficult to both reduce risk without resources and to attract resources while risk is high. “Public entrepreneurs” however, do not really face the same risks as an entrepreneur in the private sector. They are backed with government resources, which is limited only by the operating budget granted to the project. In how many different situations can we think of examples where the government has pushed forward with bad ideas irrespective of cost. In the private sector, these unsuccessful ideas would be failures once the entrepreneurs limited resources ran out. In this respect, I don’t believe “government entrepreneurs” face the same risk and resource constraints of entrepreneurs in the private sector.

Link: http://blogs.hbr.org/2014/03/government-entrepreneur-is-not-an-oxymoron/

After having listened to Mr. Carter’s thoughts on angel investments and entrepreneurial activity, I thought this article was very interesting since it explains the perspective of the entrepreneur regarding angel investing and some of the entrepreneur’s misconceptions.

http://earlygrowthfinancialservices.com/5-common-entrepreneur-misconceptions-around-angel-investors/ 

The philosophy of crowdfunding is idealistic and optimistic: It’s about everyday people having the power to give life to new businesses. Crowdfunding has launched countless dreams that might not have come true through traditional financing methods. It’s egalitarian and beautiful.

But crowdfunding is also a business. And like any business venture, efficiency, organization and discipline are going to make a huge difference in the outcome.  This article gives some interesting tips for entrepreneurs who want to use crowdfunding to to kickstart their idea.

http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/232301

A further look explaining how our partisan system is causing an impossible roadblock for immigrants with STEM degrees.

http://www.economist.com/news/special-report/21596676-governments-are-averting-their-ears-plea-open-doors?zid=317&ah=8a47fc455a44945580198768fad0fa41

Despite all the economic growth and opportunity crowdfunding could bring, there are still valid arguments against the new SEC regulation.

http://gigaom.com/2014/02/19/crowdfunding-comes-up-short-why-the-final-part-of-the-jobs-act-will-never-work/

This recent article discusses the possibility of public funding for crowdfunding, which may help to spur Europe’s stagnant economy. Although this article focuses on Europe, this idea is applicable to the United States.

http://uk.reuters.com/article/2014/03/21/uk-eu-crowdfunding-exclusive-idUKBREA2K0ND20140321