Category: Podcasts

Podcast: Photography, Art & Copyright with Eric O’Connell

In this episode, I talk to art and commercial photographer Eric O’Connell, who is also an associate professor of practice at Northern Arizona University. We talk about his work, about photography in general, his students, and of course copyright. O’Connell’s photo recently won Off the Clock 2021 Best in Show from American Photographic Artists (APA). Read interview here.

Visit Eric O’Connell’s website.

Leaning by chance that there were more than a few East Germans who had avidly adopted the American cowboy aesthetic, O’Connell began working in 2002 on a series of photographs and a short documentary film.

East German Cowboys series ©Eric O’Connell.

In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, O’Connell lived with his parents and did a series of photographs with them, including this one below, which won Off the Clock 2021 Best in Show from American Photographic Artists (APA) in June of 2021.

Pandemic series. ©Eric O’Connell

Contents

  • 2:06 – How do you describe or think about your work?
  • 4:37 – Visual anthropology
  • 6:25 – German Cowboys Series
  • 8:50 – Native Americans & Heavy Metal series
  • 12:28 – Reactions to the German Cowboys
  • 16:44 – Pandemic (parents) series
  • 25:12 – How has commercial work changed?
  • 30:06 – Conversations with students about rights to their work.
  • 32:46 – Richard Prince Instagram Show
  • 34:59 – What is a derivative work of a photograph?
  • 38:07 – How much do you follow rights issues?
  • 41:25 – Lars was right.
  • 42:53 – Do your students intent to become professionals?
  • 45:49 – The work that goes into photographs
  • 53:02 – Authorship in photography

Lens photo by Bushko

State Sovereign Immunity and Copyright with Rick Allen & Kevin Madigan

You wouldn’t think that a state entity would have the right to seize your intellectual property any more than it would have the right to seize other forms of property without due process. But it can. In this podcast, I talk with filmmaker Rick Allen and copyright expert and advocate Kevin Madigan about the challenge that state sovereign immunity poses to creators of copyrightable works.

Rick Allen is the CEO of Nautilus Productions in North Carolina. He spent seventeen years documenting the research and recovery work done on Blackbeard’s flagship the Queen Anne’s Revenge, after it was discovered off the North Carolina coast in 1996. When the state made infringing uses of Allen’s material, he sued, and that case Allen v. Cooper went to the U.S. Supreme Court in 2020, which affirmed that immunity barred Allen’s claim.

Kevin Madigan is Vice President, Legal Policy and Copyright Counsel at the advocacy organization Copyright Alliance in Washington D.C. He was previously Deputy Director at the Center for the Protection of Intellectual Property (CPIP) at George Mason University’s Antonin Scalia Law School. 

Contents

  • 1:34 – Overview of state sovereign immunity.
  • 5:53 – Rick Allen background & eventual conflict with North Carolina.
  • 16:21 – Why Blackbeard’s Law & what about breach of contract?
  • 19:32 – Why SCOTUS took Allen v. Cooper & what did we get out of it?
  • 22:38 – SCOTUS seemed disappointed in its own opinion.
  • 26:45 – States own IP, but enjoy immunity from infringement.
  • 28:08 – Results of survey & is state infringement increasing?
  • 31:57 – Anecdotal observations about state infringement.
  • 35:02 – Aberration of justice to have to show mass infringement.
  • 38:37 – Can have a devastating effect on creators.
  • 39:55 – Are we increasing state actors’ awareness of their immunity?
  • 42:04 – State remedies do not really exist.
  • 50:20 – Allen’s takings claim.
  • 52:45 – Where do things stand?
  • 54:47 – Funny coincidences.
  • 56:30 – Understanding the impact on Allen and all creators.
  • 59:04 – Substantial investment in works.
  • 01:001:58 – Copyright doesn’t protect labor.
  • 01:03:13 – The myth that creators will create no matter what.

Ethics & Platform Governance – A Conversation with Dr. Michael Katell

In February, legal scholar and journalist Kate Klonick wrote a detailed exposé for The New Yorker about Facebook’s Oversight Board, which some are calling the platform’s “Supreme Court.” In theory, the Board will have the authority, even over Mark Zuckerberg, to write a set of principles by which content is allowed (or not) to remain on the platform.

As any reader knows, I am unapologetically cynical about the premise that social media was ever particularly good for democratic societies in the first place. And that cynicism certainly does not wane with the prospect of Facebook’s Oversight Board. But to discuss some of the issues raised by Klonick’s article, and the subject of platform governance in general, I hosted this podcast interview with Dr. Michael Katell of the Public Policy Program at the Alan Turing Institute in London. Follow him on Twitter.

Show Contents

  • 00:59 – Dr. Katell’s areas of study and expertise.
  • 05:34 – The Facebook oversight board.
  • 10:44 – Neutrality is not an option.
  • 18:38 – Social media aggravating flaws in human nature.
  • 27:14 – Social media and human nature continued.
  • 32:08 – Why don’t we quit social media?
  • 35:53 – Will people be penalized for not using social media?
  • 40:44 – Do social platforms have the power of governments?
  • 45:39 – Toward a state of technological feudalism?
  • 54:12 – Regulation without faith in democracy.
  • 58:09 – Living in alternate realities.