The Copia Institute is a new, digital-native take on a think tank from Mike Masnick and the team behind Techdirt. Our focus is on promoting innovation in this age of abundance with practical, real-world solutions to various obstacles. We’re not a lobbying group or an advocacy organization: we’re a network of entrepreneurs, experts, engineers and thinkers working to foster innovation by utilizing innovation itself. Our areas of focus include patents, copyright, trademark, privacy, freedom of expression, innovation policy and more.

  • Tools, Data & Inspiration

    The digital world, characterized by the abundance of so many things that were recently scarce, is not without its challenges. These come from all corners, whether it’s problematic policy that lags behind the technological reality, or well-established business models facing the need for fundamental change. Disruptive innovation always meets with resistance, and the best way to overcome it is rarely by waiting for the worlds of policy and legacy business to change — it’s by leveraging technology and innovation to find more immediate solutions. The Copia Institute is constantly working with its members to find such solutions and translate them into useful tools, informative reports and data sets, and inspirational ideas both big and small.

  • A Network Of Innovators

    The Copia Institute is a membership-based organization for companies and individuals who share our desire to promote innovation and embrace abundance. A key pillar of this desire is understanding that we can and should all work together to expand the pie for everyone, rather than fighting over slices. Copia acts as a project coordinator among like-minded innovators, identifying problems and bringing together the people with the best ideas for solving them, then helping steward those ideas through results-focused discussions and workshops and turn them into practical solutions that everyone can benefit from.

  • Policy 911

    Startups, entrepreneurs and hackers devote pretty much all of their attention to actual innovation. Things like policy often take a backseat — for a good reason. Policy tends to be slow, unpredictable, laborious and, most importantly, not innovative at all. No one should want or expect startups to be focused on policy. Copia understands that, while also understanding that policy and policymakers are often important to startups, which is why we offer our Policy 911 service: a drop-in policy task force for startups in need. Worried about the impact of a new law? Wondering how policymakers will respond to a new service? Struggling with the differences between European and US law? Copia will put together a team of innovators to help you deal with the issue without having to build your own policy staff. Get an analysis of how policymakers might respond to your new offerings, and figure out how to best position them to avoid setting off a regulatory firestorm.

The Copia Institute is an ongoing project that takes ideas and inspiration from our twice-annual Summits and turns them into real projects that we coordinate. Copia members have the opportunity to be involved every step of the way, helping to produce tangible results that benefit them, their organizations, and the world of innovation at large. Learn more about joining Copia »