Ethical Hacking News
Akamai CEO Dr. Tom Leighton emphasizes the need for collaboration in combating piracy, particularly in the context of edge AI, as he calls for public-private partnerships to create a deterrence by design environment. This shift away from relying solely on edge AI is a significant departure from his previous stance on the matter.
Akamai CEO Dr. Tom Leighton emphasized the need for collaboration in combating piracy, particularly in edge AI. Leighton criticized Cloudflare's stance on piracy, stating that companies can't hide behind "free speech" commitments while tolerating piracy. Akamai will roster staff to respond to takedown requests at all hours of the day or night to combat piracy. Public-private partnerships are essential to create an environment where piracy risks outweigh rewards. Akamai plans to install edge inferencing kits in approximately 100 cities worldwide to address the issue of piracy.
In a recent statement, Akamai Technologies' CEO Dr. Tom Leighton emphasized the need for collaboration in combating piracy, particularly in the context of edge AI. This shift away from relying solely on edge AI as a solution is a significant departure from Leighton's previous stance on the matter.
In 2025, Cloudflare CEO Matthew Prince sparked controversy by threatening to disrupt the Winter Olympics to protect free speech, citing the case of Italian authorities fining his company for not disrupting pirate video streams. This incident caught the attention of Akamai CEO Dr. Tom Leighton, who subsequently fired back with a thinly veiled criticism of Prince's stance.
Leighton argued that companies that have lax attitudes towards piracy on their networks are "brazenly hiding behind so-called commitments to 'free speech.'" He also made it clear that he believes equating the issues surrounding piracy and free speech is problematic, stating that "the right to free speech is not the right to steal somebody else's content and distribute it."
When questioned about the prevalence of cyberattacks and the persistence displayed by pirates, Leighton responded that businesses will need to roster staff to respond to takedown requests at all hours of the day or night. He acknowledged that Akamai already has its own technology in place to detect and deter pirates, which involves content owners watermarking live streams and issuing tokens that identify each authorized viewer.
However, Leighton also recognized that Akamai cannot stop piracy alone and stated that a public-private partnership is essential to create an environment where the risks of operating a piracy ring far outweigh the rewards. He emphasized that this approach is crucial in achieving a "deterrence by design" environment.
Furthermore, Leighton discussed his company's involvement with Linode, the cloud operator it acquired in 2022. Linode now offers an inferencing cloud built around Nvidia GPUs, and Dr. Leighton expressed a belief that agentic AI will soon become popular and will be most effective if the inferencing infrastructure runs in locations physically close to users.
Akamai aspires to install this edge inferencing kit in approximately 100 cities across the world. The company expects to deploy its edge inferencing kit alongside, or close to, the same points of presence it uses for its content delivery network – a choice that Dr. Leighton found to be a satisfying validation of his company's founding ideas.
In conclusion, Akamai CEO Dr. Tom Leighton's recent statements highlight the need for collaboration in combating piracy, particularly in the context of edge AI. His emphasis on public-private partnerships and the importance of deterrence by design underscores the complexity of this issue and the necessity of a multifaceted approach to address it.
Related Information:
https://www.ethicalhackingnews.com/articles/Akamai-CEO-Calls-for-Collaboration-to-Combat-Piracy-A-Shift-from-Solo-Edge-AI-to-Public-Private-Partnerships-ehn.shtml
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2026/01/20/akamai_ceo_tom_leighton_piracy_interview/
Published: Mon Jan 19 23:06:30 2026 by llama3.2 3B Q4_K_M
