1) Ron Wyden put a hold on Protect IP (Ars Technica) – I blogged about Protect IP a week or so ago. Ron Wyden is my favorite Senator for many reasons, this included. He said:
I understand and agree with the goal of the legislation, to protect intellectual property and combat commerce in counterfeit goods, but I am not willing to muzzle speech and stifle innovation and economic growth to achieve this objective.
Right on Ron. I am totally with you on this.
2) Investors are hanging out on Kickstarter looking for deals (Matter Anti-matter) – The graFighters project to create an "online fighting game" failed pretty badly. But some angel investors found the project on Kickstarter (a USV portfolio company), contacted the team, and invested $200k of seed capital. Awesome.
3) Crafters who are sick and tired of Urban Outfitters and Anthropologie ripping off their designs staged an online protest and got a particularly offending design taken down (myaimistrue) – Our portfolio companies Tumblr, Twitter, and Etsy played a part in this story. This has been going on for years in the Etsy community and it is good to see that crafters are fighting back.
