Category: Podcasts

Podcast – The Multi-Billion-Dollar Piracy Industry with Tom Galvin of Digital Citizens Alliance

In this episode, I speak with Tom Galvin, CEO of Digital Citizens Alliance, about piracy of creative works and DCA’s latest report, issued this month in collaboration with the research group White Bullet. The report, entitled Breaking Bad(s): How Advertiser-Supported Piracy Helps Fuel a Booming Multi-Billion Dollar Illegal Market, reveals that piracy is a highly profitable criminal enterprise and is intertwined with other forms of cyber-crime—from personal identity theft to national security

Piracy of creative works like motion pictures, TV shows, music, and live sports is a vast and growing criminal enterprise. In its latest report, Digital Citizens Alliance estimates the combined advertising and subscription revenue generated by piracy is at least $2.34 billion annually. Meanwhile, in addition to its ill-effects on the creators whose works are pirated and the online advertising ecosystem, piracy plays a key role in fostering other forms of cyber crime.

Episode Contents

  • 01:52 – Breaking Bad(s) Report Overview
  • 04:05 – Ad and subscription supported piracy
  • 06:49 – The online advertising ecosystem.
  • 08:49 – Some successful mitigation since 2014.
  • 11:14 – The downsides of piracy for brands.
  • 15:10 – Major brands found were Amazon, Facebook, & Google.
  • 18:01 – It is possible to do something.
  • 19:24 – Advertiser pressure to get ad tech to clean up its act.
  • 21:09 – Dangers to the consumer.
  • 27:13 – Why aren’t the hazards deterrents?
  • 30:30 – Drive-by malware.
  • 32:07 – Piracy is a vertical for broader criminal enterprise.
  • 33:26 – What about solutions.
  • 37:33 – Even if you don’t care about copyright owners…
  • 40:30 – Intersection with disinformation campaigns?

Podcast – Formalities in U.S. Copyright with Steven Tepp

In this post, I wrote about some of the difficulties that U.S. formalities present to many independent creators, difficulties highlighted in the case Unicolors v. H&M. I cited a paper written by Steven Tepp for the Professional Photographers of America (PPA) and mentioned that I would follow up with a podcast to delve a little deeper into the subject of formalities–those pesky, administrative details that sometimes confound independent authors trying to protect their works under copyright.

Steven Tepp is the president and founder of the IP consulting firm Sentinel Worldwide. In his career, he has  served as Chief Intellectual Property Counsel for the Global Intellectual Property Center (GIPC) of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and as senior counsel for Policy and International Affairs at the U.S. Copyright Office.  See Steven’s website here.

Episode Contents

  • 46:06 – Steven Tepp’s background
  • 01:42 – What are  formalities in U.S. copyright?
  • 06:06 – The relationship between formalities and the Library of Congress.
  • 08:05 – Consolidation of deposit copies at the Library of Congress.
  • 11:15 – U.S. partial breaks with formalities.
  • 19:28 – A copyright notice is not required, but…
  • 21:25 – The basics of complying with existing formalities.
  • 33:58 – AWF v. Goldsmith and registration of an unpublished work.
  • 37:22 – Unicolors v. H&M and mixing published and unpublished works.
  • 40:41 – The meaning of “published” as a question of law.
  • 45:45 – The difficulty of “publication” after preemption of common law copyright.
  • 50:29 – The well-intended doctrine of “limited publication.”
  • 53:46 – Unicolors’s challenge as a result of the “limited publication” doctrine.
  • 57:34 – One solution to the “publication” problem.
  • 01:06:00 – Formalities and the small-claim provision created by the CASE Act.

Podcast – IP & Social Justice with Professor Lateef Mtima

In this episode, I talk with Professor Mtima about how and why he and his colleagues approach IP from a social justice perspective.  “Lateef Mtima is a Professor of Law at the Howard University School of Law. After graduating with honors from Amherst College, Professor Mtima received his J.D. degree from Harvard Law School, where he was the co-founder and later editor-in-chief of the Harvard BlackLetter Journal.” Visit Professor Mtima’s website.

Show Contents

  • 1:07 – Defining social justice in an IP context.
  • 7:54 – Distinguishing between social justice and predatory practice
  • 11:45 – How the conversation about race factors into the IPSJ discussion.
  • 18:17 – The “Blurred Lines” case.
  • 24:30 –  Was copyright a highly democratic statement at U.S. founding?
  • 30:56 – But patent was  a different story.
  • 34:05 – Cotton gin and further patent discussion.
  • 36:46 – How can IPSJ be made accessible to laymen?
  • 43:30 – Anti IP and the corporatist message.
  • 47:49 – On trademarking offensive terms.
  • 58:35 – Are contemporary politics, policy, caselaw moving toward IPSJ?
  • 01:04:58 – Anti IP and progressive views.
  • 01:10:28 – Idea/Expression dichotomy discussion.