Today, Silicon Valley companies — especially Google — give generously to right-leaning think tanks that publish writing skeptical of copyright protection. Google has donated to almost every right-leaning think tank in Washington, including the R Street Institute, the Cato Institute, the Mercatus Center, the American Enterprise Institute, and the Heritage Foundation. So if youre a right-leaning copyright skeptic, its easy to find organizations to publish your work.
So far, the shifting intellectual winds havent been strong enough to reverse the trend toward stronger copyright protection, but they have slowed them down. Opposition to the Stop Online Piracy Act from right-of-center think tanks helped convinced Republican lawmakers to oppose the legislation in 2012, eventually killing it. Content companies havent tried to enact major copyright legislation since then. And internet companies like Google will only become more important to the American economy in the coming years, so Hollywoods copyright agenda is going to increasingly face bipartisan skepticism on Capitol Hill.
Via How Google money is helping turn the political right against strong copyrights @ Vox.