Troll situation worsening?

Andrew Langer at TownHall on trolls

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Clearly the situation is worsening. Trolls are targeting a variety of industries, with retailers, car companies and financial institutions among their favorite prey. About half of patent trolling victims are small businesses and entrepreneurs, who make for easy targets because many would rather seek a settlement than spend more money in court. And they are targeted by trolls for allegedly violating patents with common practices, such as running a wireless internet router in their store or having their information show up on a search engine map.

I have an intense personal reason for being deeply troubled by this – I do a weekly podcast on politics, policy and society, and podcasters have become a favorite target. Much in the same way that video programming has moved towards time-shifted and on-demand viewership, the same transformation is taking place in the audio world, and patent trolls have targeted a number of podcasters. We do not want to be next!

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