Marvin Ammori

Marvin Ammori is an American scholar, lawyer, and activist.

He is a 2013 Bernard L. Schwartz Fellow and heads a small law firm in Washington, D.C. He is best known for his work on network neutrality issues (notably, the Comcast-BitTorrent case),  copyright (in opposing SOPA), Google's antitrust investigation, and Internet freedom issues generally. He is the author of an e-book entitled "On Internet Freedom," which was released in 2013. He was also the first to propose and helped organize the inaugural "Internet Freedom Day" actions on January 18, 2013, the one-year anniversary of the SOPA Blackout. He speaks widely on Internet freedom issues and social media strategies. Partly for his work against SOPA and PIPA, Fast Company named Ammori among the 100 Most Creative People in Business in 2012.

Before starting his law firm, Ammori was briefly a law professor at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln College of Law where he co-founded a program in Space & Cyber Law. Prior to academia, he was the first head lawyer of advocacy group Free Press, the largest organization devoted exclusively to digital and media policy in the United States. Ammori spoke at TEDx University of Michigan in 2011 about the topic of network neutrality (see video below).

Education and Career
Ammori attended the University of Michigan, where he studied English literature, and later earned his JD from Harvard Law School, where he studied under the guidance of Yochai Benkler. After law school, Ammori worked for the law firm Kirkland & Ellis, LLP. He then worked as a staff attorney for Georgetown University Law Center's Institute for Public Representation, co-headed by Angela Campbell and David Vladeck, and later joined the public interest group Free Press as its first General Counsel.

In 2008, while with Free Press, he authored the network-neutrality complaint to the U.S. Federal Communications Commission in response to Comcast managing peer-to-peer protocols and handled the case as the lead lawyer for consumer groups and academics. Technology lawyer Gigi Sohn referred to the FCC decision as the biggest victory in over two decades by consumer groups at the FCC. Ammori later argued the appeal of that FCC decisions, Comcast v. FCC, on behalf of consumer groups and technology companies before the D.C. Circuit.

In 2008, Ammori joined the University of Nebraska College of Law as an Assistant Professor, helping to lead the law school's Space & Cyber Law program. While at Nebraska he taught courses in cyber law and domestic and international telecommunications law. While at Nebraska, he authored "First Amendment Architecture," published in the Wisconsin Law Review in the spring of 2012. In 2011, Ammori left his professorship and returned to Washington, D.C. Ammori took part in the debate over the controversial copyright bills SOPA and the PROTECT IP Act, primarily focused on the bills' First Amendment issues. It was for his work opposing SOPA and PIPA that Ammori was placed on Fast Company's 2012 "100 Most Creative People in Business."

In January, 2013, Ammori proposed a national holiday called “Internet Freedom Day,” to be celebrated on January 18, commemorating the SOPA Blackout and celebrating Internet freedom. On January 15, Ammori published an e-book entitled "On Internet Freedom," which analyzes public policy battles over the Internet and related subjects including copyright and freedom of expression.

Other Activities
Ammori is a Term Member of the Council on Foreign Relations and an Affiliate Scholar with Stanford Law School's Center for Internet and Society.

Ammori's writings have been published in The Atlantic, Wired.com, Forbes,  Slate, and GigaOm.

Video
TEDxUofM Talk YouTube video May 27, 2011