Social Enterprise Buzz Profiles Jim Fruchterman

Social Enterprise Buzz, a media company dedicated to covering social enterprise news from around the world, featured our CEO, Jim Fruchterman, and his journey navigating legal issues and creating social good throughout Benetech’s history.

The story, “Benetech CEO Jim Fruchterman: Navigating the Law Fearlessly,” recounts how Benetech originated when Jim’s lawyer suggested that he start a nonprofit tech company and run it as a business of making reading machines for blind people.

Since then, the story continues, Benetech has navigated a range of legal issues while advancing its goal of creating social impact at scale through technology: from early legal challenges during its first days of selling reading machines for the blind, to establishing Bookshare under an exception in US copyright law, to advocating for a consumer-friendly global intellectual property treaty for people with print disabilities, to providing guidance on what legal structure a social enterprise should adopt.