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S5E09: AI, Copyright, and the Entertainment Industry, with Nancy Wolff RLAW'81
19 Plays8 months ago
Nancy Wolff RLAW'81 joins Dean Bond to talk about her own journey from law school to practicing law in media, entertainment, and the arts, along with developments in AI and how it affects her industry.
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The Power of Attorney is produced by Rutgers Law School. With two locations minutes from Philadelphia and New York City, Rutgers Law offers the prestige and reputation of a large, nationally known university combined with a personal, small campus experience. Learn more by visiting law.rutgers.edu.
Executive Producer: Shanida Carter
Series Producer & Editor: Nate Nakao
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Transcript
Introduction to The Power of Attorney
00:00:07
Speaker
You're listening to the Anthem Award-winning podcast from Rutgers Law School, The Power of Attorney. I'm your host and dean of the law school, Joanna Bond.
00:00:20
Speaker
It gives me great pleasure to welcome today Nancy Wolf, who is a Rutgers Law grad and a partner at the intellectual property media and entertainment law firm of CDAS, located in New York and Beverly Hills, California. Nancy, thanks so much for being with us today. Oh, thank you for inviting me.
00:00:40
Speaker
I have a lot of questions for you about your current work, but let me first start by saying congratulations on being named one of New York's top 25 entertainment attorneys in The Hollywood Reporter. Tell us a little bit about how you got there and let's start with your origin story.
Nancy Wolf's Journey into Law
00:01:01
Speaker
Well, it's kind of that long and windy road. My father was a lawyer, and I was determined never to be a lawyer. He, of course, also was a product of the Depression. So I want to go to college and study art. He said you can take that as side classes, but you need to get a job. And so I studied business undergrad, and the only one that didn't have numbers involved, which was marketing.
00:01:32
Speaker
that's hilarious. I love marketing because it was about writing, which I enjoyed. And I could not keep numbers in a column to save my life in accounting. So when I graduated, I realized marketing would get you a great job as a salesperson. And that was also not that interesting. So my father
00:01:50
Speaker
said, well, you know, you should go to law school because you don't have to be a lawyer. It's just a good stepping stone for something else. And since I had no, you know, great idea of what I was going to do, I said, OK, I'll try law school. And I was the oldest of four. So my father encouraged me to accept the application I got for Rutgers because the other one was at Georgetown, which was like an enormously different
00:02:18
Speaker
And I had grown up in Livingston, New Jersey, and my father and his family had been from Newark, so I was very familiar with going to Newark and getting Portuguese food, and I was comfortable.
00:02:29
Speaker
That was a very different building. I'm sure, I'm sure. Well, that's great. I love that. Although it was a circuitous route that brought you to Rutgers that you ended up with us here. And why did you choose Rutgers in particular? Was there anything that drew you to Rutgers Law School? It was near New York, so I could go there. Right. It was the New Jersey state
00:02:56
Speaker
you know, law school and had a good reputation. And at that time, very affordable. I had, you know, in-state tuition and I left with very little debt, which unfortunately all my interns who come to see me are not in that situation. But so and, you know, it turned out I really enjoyed the people that I went to school with.
Exploration of Intellectual Property
00:03:23
Speaker
I really liked it a lot. Of course. That's great.
00:03:26
Speaker
You probably have a program with a lot more entertainment courses, but I did find one copyright class, and that was my favorite. Oh, fantastic. That's great. That's great. Well, did you know from the start that you wanted to go into intellectual property and copyright law? And if not, at what point did you decide and what swayed you?
00:03:47
Speaker
Well, I knew once I took copyright law, I really wanted to do it. The problem was at the time I was in school, we hadn't had the big internet explosion yet, and there weren't that many law firms that had an entertainment copyright, you know, art-leaning practice. I always loved the arts. I also found a course called, like, law and literature, and we put on Antigone.
00:04:11
Speaker
Oh, that's great. But and the law firm that I admired the most that had brought Ulysses in when it was I guess a band book dissolve while I was in law school, which was disappointing because the name was also Greenbound Wolf and Ernst and they spelled wolf the right way. So I figured if I went there, I think I was a partner. But so what I did was just try to get a job at the best firm I could
00:04:37
Speaker
find. And at that time, it was a firm that wasn't known for intellectual property. It was Schulte, Roth, and Zabel. But some of the other firms I was accepted at were huge, like Wild Gotchill. And I just thought I'd get lost there. But I realized very early on that I didn't like doing corporate law or reading bond offerings and things like that. So I tried to find my way to the arts.
00:05:06
Speaker
I did volunteer work with volunteer lawyers for the arts.
Career Development and Partnership at CDAS
00:05:10
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And I joined like the Copyright Society. So I would meet other people who did copyright law. I got active in New York County Lawyers Entertainment Law Group. But after not a very long time, I just
00:05:29
Speaker
did not want to do the corporate law anymore. So I thought I could like hold up, you know, put up a shingle and just do work for volunteer lawyers of the arts. That didn't work out that well. But I did randomly meet a photographer who introduced me to his company called photo researchers who represented photographers. And they said, we have this lawyer and he seems really overworked. Maybe you
00:05:55
Speaker
would want to work for him. So I met him and he said he really didn't have anything for me to do right then. But then he called me up and didn't want to go to small claims court for something. So I said I would go. I still have my little shingle up. And it was a copyright case brought in small claims court. And so I had it removed because you only could have federal jurisdiction. And I think he was kind of
00:06:19
Speaker
so surprised that someone thought about that, that he decided he was going to teach me his practice. So I worked with him for some time. And then I moved on and worked with a colleague that I met sort of being an adversary. Her name is Helene Godin. And she had been doing publishing and entertainment law. Then her husband was in the dot com boom. They were in California. And she called me one day and says,
00:06:48
Speaker
Seth says we can move back to New York. Do you want to start a law practice together? So we did that. Oh, that's fantastic. That's great. Well, I also love that you started out with this interest in art. And although your father said a law degree would be more promising, you still found a way to circle back in the legal field to art. That's wonderful. Can you talk a little bit about your current role as partner at CDAS?
00:07:17
Speaker
Yeah, so I'm one of the owners and managing partners. We're a boutique firm and we're, as you said, in both New York and California. And I've always worn a few hats, like I can do dispute resolution as well as contract negotiation and a lot of counseling and things like copyright and right of privacy, publicity, trademark. So I've always had my feet in different
00:07:44
Speaker
in different practice areas, which has worked out well for me here because I can sort of be an advisor and really give good guidance in the litigation. But you can also, I know and understand how IP works, so I'm really good with licensing agreements. And then the entertainment lawyers who do the real entertainment option agreements and movie streaming and things like that, when they need fair use reviews of content, like I know all the pressure points
00:08:14
Speaker
can look at things and say what's risky, what's not and why and really be helpful in teaching people what's fair use, what's not fair use, what needs to be licensed.
Impact of AI on Legal Practice
00:08:25
Speaker
One thing that I did get out of my job with the lawyer who worked in the photography area was I ended up being counsel to a trade association of all the stock photo agencies, which at the time was a little bit a sleepy business, but right then
00:08:40
Speaker
things started to explode because everything started to be licensed online and all these weird things I knew about images were suddenly valuable and no one else knew them because it was sort of this little industry that no one had heard of and then it became really important so you know I still do a lot of work with all the major Stock photo libraries because I just have like years of experience and knowledge that you like it's never written down anywhere you just know that you
00:09:10
Speaker
can show a photograph of the Eiffel Tower in Paris during the day, but not at night because the light show is copyrighted. I mean, all these funny little things. That's amazing. Right place, right time, for sure. Right place, right time. That's incredible. And I know AI seems to have created such a vast unknown future since it has become
00:09:37
Speaker
widely available. Has it changed what you do? It has changed a lot of the questions and issues I'm dealing with with clients. Like I'm not using AI myself to write briefs. I've seen lawyers get in trouble with that because it hallucinates and makes up cases. But I sort of joke that two years ago,
00:10:02
Speaker
NFTs were my life. Everyone wanted to do an NFT and then all of a sudden the crypto boom was over and dead silence on NFTs, but AI became the forefront of everyone's mind. I remember sitting at a
00:10:23
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meeting with a lot of National Geographic photographers and someone was showing early versions of generative AI where people could make, you know, the tiger in the woods and they looked around and said, oh, so no one's going to send me to Africa anymore. It was like they had a look on their face like the world was ending. Right. So it was kind of a scary time. So at that point, I would say now AI is my life. I've been involved with the ABA
00:10:52
Speaker
task force on copyright reform and then also on the AI. Clients have either been asking for advice on how to use AI, when they can use AI. Design studios want to know, you know, can they have their illustrators and artists and designers use anything with AI? Because it's all these issues whether it can be protected by copyright. The Copyright Office will not register works if they're just created by prompts.
00:11:20
Speaker
And then I have clients who have libraries that want to license it to AI models that are doing like ethical AI where everything's licensed. Most of the stock photo companies have their own AI platforms. And then we've also our counsel to, in a particular case, the Authors Guild, where they're copyright counsel on the case that the fiction writers have brought under a class action against open AI.
00:11:50
Speaker
for copyright infringement. And I've helped register data sets for some of the stock photo industry with the Copyright Office. It must be a challenge just to keep up with the developments in AI. I mean, it's a world that is changing so rapidly. It is. I mean, I feel copyright's been like that for years. I mean, every day I wake up and I read
00:12:15
Speaker
my summary reporters, whether it's Law 360 or the Media Law Resource Center. I'm still very active in the copyright society. I was president for a few years. So I get weekly updates on all the cases and the legislation and things on right of publicity and privacy. I spent yesterday writing a letter because Tennessee is all worried about deepfakes and AI, but they've written a law that could
00:12:41
Speaker
prevent you from doing things like documentary films and expressive works because they're so concerned about fake performers and fake singers, they forget those legitimate reasons why someone may replicate or impersonate someone if it's a parody, a comedy, a documentary.
Insights into Legal Profession and Client Interaction
00:13:03
Speaker
So trying to make sure that when
00:13:07
Speaker
people are trying to protect against the horribles that they also don't impinge on the right of free speech and free expression. Right, it's such an important balance. Yeah, things happen so quickly that it's daily. Mm-hmm, absolutely. And what should artists and companies be thinking about with respect to AI?
00:13:28
Speaker
I think there's two things. One, you think about, well, has my work been used to create AI, and should this be something that we should be trying to seek a license for? I think that's what a lot of the industries are doing, whether it's the Authors Guild and some of the photo agencies and New York Times. They know AI is here to stay, but they think it should not be done where the internet is scraped, but that there's a licensing model.
00:13:50
Speaker
And then there's also companies that need to create films and do designs and how AI can be a tool to make a lot of mundane tasks a lot easier. I mean, if you pick up your phone, there's so much AI in it. You know, Adobe has lots of products where you can start to do a design and have things fill in everywhere. So AI can make a lot of mundane tasks easier. But I think you have to look at it as a first draft, a first step.
00:14:15
Speaker
because it can also make a lot of mistakes. And I always find it interesting where people try to equate AI with a human and the way a human thinks. But it's not. It's predictive. It's only as good as what was fed to it. Right. Right. Well, and you mentioned this earlier, but we've all seen those examples where chat GPT or some other AI instrument has invented cases. So I think as lawyers, we need to be particularly careful. Lawyers have to be pretty careful. Right.
00:14:44
Speaker
Right. So let me ask you this, what's your favorite and least favorite part of the job? My favorite part of the job is working with clients and counseling and help them do things that they really want to do the right way. Like I love working with small museums, like I have a client poster house, and we created all these really
00:15:07
Speaker
fun learning experiences for when people come in where they can learn about posters by trying to make a poster and they have a room for children and what you can do within the bounds of copyright and things like that. So things like that are really fun. The worst part is always going to be trying to write down everything you do all day. I will probably never love the billable time thing, but we're here and we're stuck with it.
00:15:32
Speaker
Right, right. For our listeners who may not be lawyers, can you just explain a little bit about what that requires? Many lawyers bill by the amount of time it takes you to do something. So you're always having to write down, well, I spent 10 minutes or 12 minutes or 30 minutes or one hour with this client doing that thing. But I'm jumping from a Zoom call to a phone call to writing something and I'm always, you know,
00:16:00
Speaker
juggling so many things at once because I have associates now that do most of the long in-depth brief writing where you could spend a whole day doing one thing and write one thing down. I could have 10 things in
Advice for Law Students and Prospective Lawyers
00:16:13
Speaker
one day. So I feel like it has made me
00:16:17
Speaker
like have attention deficit syndrome just by necessity. Right, right. Do you find yourself thinking about your own private personal time in terms of chunks of seven minutes or? Fortunately, no. Good, good. That's great. In fact, when I was a runner, I refused to keep a log like my husband did of how long I ran. I said, I have to keep track of everything in my life. I'm not keeping track of fun things. I don't care how many miles we ran.
00:16:46
Speaker
Right, that seems like a good approach.
00:16:50
Speaker
And what should law students and prospective law students pay attention to if they wanted to follow in your footsteps and take the Nancy Wolf path? Well, the path that you may not know where you went up and how you got there, I think you have to remember when your first job is never going to be your last job. And just do things that will help you be a better lawyer and learn along the way.
00:17:17
Speaker
drafting skills. Every profession needs some contracts. And I think intellectual property is something that everyone should know a little bit about because the way information and communication is presented this day, it's in some kind of online form, which you're always dealing with reproduction. So it is a really good idea to have some background in IP.
00:17:43
Speaker
And, you know, having good writing skills will help you no matter what you do, good speaking skills. But I think you have to actually do what you really like. If you don't like something, you're going to spend a lot of time at something you don't enjoy. So I think even if you don't start with it, just I knew what I liked. And even if my job at the time wasn't training me, I did it myself in the evenings by doing, you know, copyright society event.
00:18:12
Speaker
and entertainment law committees. And what I think is important is not just to sit back and be a member of the committee, but I would be a co-chair and so I would plan that
00:18:24
Speaker
the meetings and I would say, well, I want to learn how to do a recording agreement. And so I would just call lawyers and someone who would be the top lawyers at firms and companies and say, would you want to speak at this? And you'd be surprised. They say yes. And people I find are very willing to share what they know. And that's one thing I really love about the Copyright Society. You can be a law student or you could be a senior lawyer and everyone is willing to talk and share. And I just find that this
00:18:53
Speaker
profession when it comes to this area of the law is very helpful. We can still be adversaries and it doesn't have to be ugly. Absolutely. Well, that's excellent advice. I'm going to ask you another question that relates to advice for students who may be thinking about law school. But what advice would you give to students who are thinking about law school but may not think that it's actually possible for them?
00:19:23
Speaker
I think law school is possible for anyone if you think that it's going to be something that will be good for you to do. There's ways you can do it. You can work and go nights or you could go during the day. And I found law school to be not
00:19:46
Speaker
in a sense, hard, hard. It's just a different way of going to school because you don't have consistent exams. Mostly a lot of things wait to the end and maybe it's changed a little, but you have to keep yourself learning and on track during the way. And I found, I always just found a buddy that I would study with to make it more fun. And I know our class was sort of known for being a class that got along. I don't know if that wasn't true with other classes, but we really enjoy each other.
00:20:15
Speaker
And we had a, you know, it was a very communal type experience. And that's one thing I did like about Rutgers. It was very diverse in terms of age and backgrounds of people. I was the youngest in the class. I had skipped a year of high school. And my closest friend was 10 years older than me. And we had more fun standing together than some of the other people that someone once complained that we didn't deserve our A's in real estate because we laughed too much.
00:20:42
Speaker
Well, it's great that you had fun along the way. I think that's phenomenal. Yeah, I thought it was a good environment to learn because there were people who had worked and come back and people from all different walks of life. And I found that really to be more interesting than the way I had been in school with just people my age for the last how many years before that.
00:21:06
Speaker
I'm also relatively new to the Rutgers Law community. And I have to say, I have found the same thing. It's a truly special, diverse, very supportive community. And so I've seen that. And it's not surprising to me that you found a great study buddy. I think that there are a lot of students have that experience. It's just emblematic of our community.
00:21:35
Speaker
And I think the year I went, it was one of the only law schools at the time that was like 50-50 women and men, which was pretty interesting too.
00:21:43
Speaker
Right. Absolutely. That's fantastic.
Conclusion and Rutgers Law Promotion
00:21:47
Speaker
Well, Nancy, thank you so much for sharing your experience with us today and for sharing your thoughts on your law school journey. And congratulations again on your top 25 entertainment attorneys award. That's fantastic. And thanks for taking the time to chat with us today. It was a pleasure. Thank you so much for inviting me.
00:22:08
Speaker
The Power of Attorney is a production of Rutgers Law School. With two locations just minutes from New York City and Philadelphia, Rutgers Law offers the prestige and reputation of a large, nationally known university with a personal, small campus experience. Learn more today by visiting us at law.rutgers.edu.