Masayuki Hatta

Masayuki Hatta (八田 真行, born 1979, Japanese) is an associate professor of Economics at the Faculty of Economics and Management, Surugadai University in Saitama, Japan.

Originally trained as an economist/organizational theorist, Hatta writes and talks extensively about the so-called intellectual property issues and Open Source software licensing in particular. In recent years, he also researches on techno-privacy issues.

Hatta is also a journeyman hacker (a GNU and Debian official developer), an avid supporter of the Free Software cause and a vocal advocate for hacktivism and the freedom of the internet in general. He contributes privacy-enhancing technologies such as I2P and Tor. Currently he resides in the suburb of Tokyo, Japan.

Hatta also serves as a visiting research fellow at Centre for Global Communications (GLOCOM), International University of Japan and was formerly a special research fellow at Institute of Intellectual Property of Japan (2010-2011).

Hatta has been involved with several Internet-based activisms in Japan, such as Movements for Internet Active Users (MIAU), an organization made models of EFF/ORG, and Open Knowledge Japan, the Japan chapter of Open Knowledge, for both as a founding member. He also serves on several committees of the Japanese government, including the committee for AI Network Society (2017-present).