Edward Felten Quotes & Sayings

“Innovation happens because there are people out there doing and trying a lot of different things.”

“We're in a situation where the solutions that we have are not good enough. The way to improve anything is to have a discussion about its flaws. To understand what the one or two or three things are about it that would help fix it. The DMCA makes it dangerous to have that conversation.”

“The problem - when you cast your net that wide - is you inevitably catch something you don't want to catch.”

“Given that you'll never be able to prevent copying, the question is, what can you do to minimize it? What can you do to make consumers happy enough with legitimate use of the system that they'll be willing to pay for it?”

“In making policy designed with copyright in mind, you end up making decisions about whether other important technologies, such as privacy-enhancing or file-search technologies, should be encouraged or discouraged. A collision is happening between creativity and protecting IP.”

“Growth comes out of a healthy competitive atmosphere, not trying to choose a particular path forward.”

“The next generation of innovators, who need neutrality the most, are not at the bargaining table. They're hard at work in their labs or classrooms, dreaming of the next big thing, and hoping that the Internet is as open to them as it was to the founders of Google.”

“Vigorous enforcement of copyrights themselves is an important part of the picture. But I don't think that expanding the legal definition of copyright outside of actual copyright infringement is the right move.”

“I think there are problems with compact disc copy protection that can't be resolved.”

“Network operators need reasonable leeway to manage their networks.”