> reads like a plant from an industry pressure group A useful alternate headline could be: Think tank funded by pro-SOPA MPAA board members Viacom, Time Warner

> reads like a plant from an industry pressure group A useful alternate headline could be: Think tank funded by pro-SOPA MPAA board members Viacom, Time Warner, Disney Corp., and News Corp. attacks Google for doing the right thing and opposing SOPA. The Stop Online Piracy Act was an awful bit of Hollywood-backed anti-Internet legislation. USC's Annenberg Innovation Lab receives funding from BET Networks (Viacom), Disney, Paramount Pictures (Viacom), Viacom itself, Warner Bros. (Time Warner), Fox Broadcasting (News Corp), according to its web site: http://www.annenberglab.com/about http://www.annenberglab.com/about Those companies are board members of the MPAA. It's true that the think tank lists other donors as well; the question is whether the non-MPAA donors account for any significant part of its budget. It was a well-written article, but the talking points, as you say, could come from an MPAA blog post. It's a shame because there are important things to say about these topics, and the linked article could have done a good job of framing them. :(