On April 28, with little advance notice, an announcement was released by various governments informing the world that they had just signed a “Declaration for the Future of the Internet”. In all, sixty-one countries signed this grandiose-sounding document, ranging from Albania to Uruguay. Signatories notably included the US, which was the sponsor of the Declaration, the 27 countries of the EU, the UK, Japan, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and four of the five Nordic countries.
Online piracy of creative works is a massive, global problem. In 2020, there were 137.2 billion visits globally to film and TV piracy sites alone. The damage is profound, costing the US economy at least 230,000 jobs and more than $29.2 billion annually, according to a US Chamber of Commerce/NERA Economic Consulting study.