Intellectual property

Economy

You can't spell Olympics without IP

7:34pm August 08, 2024

The International Olympic Committee has developed a reputation over the years for stringently enforcing its trademarks during the summer games. It has good reason to, with brands like Coca-Cola and Visa paying top dollar for exclusive sponsorship rights. Today on the show, the lengths the IOC will go to protect its trademarks and how smaller brands try to avoid their dragnet.

Related episodes:
Why the Olympics cost so much (Apple / Spotify)
Peacock, potassium and other Paris Olympics Indicators (Apple / Spotify)

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A hologram of Tupac Shakur performs at the 2012 Coachella Valley Music & Arts Festival at the Empire Polo Field in Indio, California. Christopher Polk/Getty Images for Coachella

Economy

AI Tupac and the murky legality of digital necromancy

3:42pm May 21, 2024

With a few clicks of AI software, anyone can conjure the voice or visual likeness of a dead celebrity — or really anyone. This new world has opened up a bunch of new legal questions about the rights of people and their heirs to control digital replicas of themselves. Today on the show, how a Drake diss track featuring the voice of Tupac made it into the Congressional record, and how it may lead to more regulation of AI.

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Related episodes:
AI creates, transforms and destroys ... jobs (Apple / Spotify)
Are the Products in your shopping cart real? (Apple / Spotify)
Planet Money makes an episode using AI

For sponsor-free episodes of The Indicator from Planet Money, subscribe to Planet Money+ via Apple Podcasts or at plus.npr.org.

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Michael Casey (L) is shown here with U.S. Air Force Lieutenant General Timothy Haugh, at a confirmation hearing before the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence on July 12, 2023. Casey is now the director of the National Counterintelligence and Security Center.

The U.S. counterintelligence head says the list of threats is long and getting longer

10:41am April 12, 2024

by Ryan Lucas

Mike Casey tells NPR that the scale of spying against the United States is "impressive and terrifying." He says: "More players are getting into it with more tools, going after more targets."

Here we go again: Time loop stories were around long before the 1993 movie Groundhog Day. So a friendly reminder that one person's discovery of something isn't the same as its invention.

Arts

Time loop stories aren't all 'Groundhog Day' rip-offs. Time loop stories aren't all...

12:02pm February 02, 2024

by Linda Holmes

Here we go again: Time loop stories were around long before the 1993 movie Groundhog Day. So a friendly reminder that one person's discovery of something isn't the same as its invention.

Apple says the ability to measure blood oxygen levels will no longer be available on the Apple Watch Series 9 and Watch Ultra 2 models, after the tech giant's loss in a patent case.

Health & Safety

Apple Watch users are losing a popular health app after court's ruling in patent case

5:13pm January 18, 2024

by Diba Mohtasham

The ability to measure blood oxygen levels is dropping from the Apple Watch Series 9 and Watch Ultra 2. Apple is making the change to comply with a ruling by the International Trade Commission.

A Bed Bath & Beyond sign is displayed in 2012, in Mountain View, Calif. Overstock.com is dumping its name online and becoming Bed Bath & Beyond.

National

Overstock.com is revamping using Bed Bath & Beyond's name

5:26pm August 01, 2023

Overstock bought Bed Bath & Beyond's intellectual property in bankruptcy court. Overstock CEO Jonathan Johnson said the company wanted Bed Bath & Beyond's name recognition.

Regé-Jean Page and Phoebe Dynevor starred in the first season of the Netflix show, Bridgerton.

Arts

The Netflix v. 'Unofficial Bridgerton Musical' lawsuit, explained

12:53pm August 04, 2022

by Deanna Schwartz

Netflix is suing Abigail Barlow and Emily Bear, who wrote the Grammy-winning Unofficial Bridgerton Musical, for infringement of intellectual property rights of the streaming service's hit show.

Feng "Franklin" Tao stands in front of a church in Lawrence, Kan., on March 20.

A jury finds a Kansas scholar guilty of fraud and hiding ties to China

8:12pm April 07, 2022

by John Ruwitch

The jury also found Feng "Franklin" Tao not guilty of four related counts in the case, which spurred by the Trump Justice Department's controversial "China Initiative" effort.

The ship Hammersmith Bridge, foreground, which has just arrived from Shanghai in China, unloads Chinese shipping containers at the Port of Long Beach, in Los Angeles County, on September 29, 2018.

U.S. Opens Trade Talks With China

6:21pm January 30, 2019

by Scott Horsley

President Trump has threatened to increase and expand on about $250 billion in tariffs, but he agreed to hold off until early March, while negotiators try to hammer out a deal.

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Chinese Vice President Wang Qishan speaks at the World Economic Forum annual meeting in Davos, Switzerland. His message: The U.S. shouldn't expect too much from China when it comes to cracking down on intellectual property theft.

Analysis: Why A Chinese Leader Told The Story Of 'A Devil And A Demon'

9:48am January 29, 2019

by Pallavi Gogoi

China's Vice President Wang Qishan likes parables. In Davos he told a story to answer a question on U.S.-China trade relations.