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Images from Emily Ratajkowski's Instagram page

By creating her own IP, model-turned-memoirist Emily Ratajkowski is taking control

She shot to fame by appearing in the music video for the song “Blurred Lines”. Now, model-actress Emily Ratajkowski is also an author whose debut memoir, My Body, comes out this month.

Her book arrives on the heels of an essay she wrote for New York magazine in 2020. Titled “Buying Myself Back”, the piece – which went viral – detailed several harrowing instances where she tried to gain con

Screenshot of the official Taylor Swift website

How important is it to own your IP? Taylor Swift knows all too well

We last wrote about pop star Taylor Swift’s decision to re-record her albums made under the Big Machine label here, and explained why this move was necessary for her goal of gaining the master rights to these re-recorded songs.
Now, the second of these re-recorded albums, Red, is being released. And Swift is making the media rounds to reiterate exactly why she feels it’s important for artists t

Screenshot from M-sense Migräne's Twitter page

Big Tech has an IP theft problem

Whether or not one finds the idea of a metaverse exhilarating or creepy, Facebook has not been a company that inspires much affection for quite a while, thanks to its data privacy controversies. So when the company recently announced it was changing its name to Meta (inspired by the concept of the metaverse), the mocking memes were quick to proliferate.
Among the many jokes made at Meta’s expe

Screenshot of Archewell website

How royal couple Harry and Meghan upped their IP game

With a musical, a movie and recent and upcoming seasons of the immensely popular series The Crown all featuring the late Princess Diana, the troubled life of the British icon is capturing the popular imagination once again.
In the real world, her two sons are navigating life under the public spotlight in their own ways. Prince Harry and his wife Meghan Markle, in particular, have carved out th

Images from the COP26 Instagram account

With COP26 in progress, it’s time to look at the role of IP in sustainability

It’s been called the world's best last chance to get the climate crisis under control, and it’s happening right now. This week, representatives from over 190 countries gather in Glasgow for the United Nations' 26th Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) Conference of the Parties (COP26). Even the likes of Leonardo DiCaprio, Jeff Bezos and Ellie Goulding are expected, and esteemed figures

Screengrab of Cadbury video explaining how Bollywood star Shah Rukh Khan's digital avatar was used in its ad campaign

That's not really Shah Rukh Khan — the growing prevalence of deepfakes throws up urgent IP questions

For those celebrating the festival of Deepavali/Diwali in India this month, take a second look at any seasonal ads starring celebrities. You might just be looking at a digital avatar created by artificial intelligence rather than the real star.

Rephrase.ai, a Bengaluru-based startup, says in a report published on Rest of World that they are working on some of these ads. Here’s what they do

Image from the official Dune website

Dune, Star Wars, and the “bad art friend” — copyright and the anxiety of influence

Dune, published in 1965 and written by American author Frank Herbert, has been called “the greatest novel in the science fiction canon”, and a movie adaptation of the book is being released this month. Those who are coming to this epic story for the first time may find it very familiar, especially if they have even a cursory knowledge of Star Wars.
From a desert planet to an evil empire, there

Photo by Zeg Young on Unsplash

How the changing value of paparazzi IP could affect Bennifer redux

2021 has been full of unpredictability, and among its many surprises was the reunion of Ben Affleck and Jennifer Lopez. This unlikely recoupling had the Internet swiftly resurrecting the couple’s former portmanteau nickname — Bennifer (or, as some witty meme-makers preferred, Againnifer.)
Will these Hollywood stars make it work the second time around? One possible way to predict their odds is

Images from Christian Dior website

Dior’s use of Balinese textile shows value of IP for nation-branding

When the world was in the thick of the Covid-19 pandemic and most borders were closed in 2020, the catwalks of Paris were enlivened by a dash of Indonesian culture thanks to the Christian Dior spring-summer 2021 ready-to-wear fashion show, which featured traditional Ikat Endek fabric handmade by weavers in Bali.
Also known as Wastra or Kain Endek, this style of textile involves dyeing the warp

Screenshots from Amazon.com and Elizabeth Haigh’s Instagram page

Food writers appalled by chef Elizabeth Haigh’s alleged plagiarism in her debut cookbook

Makan means “to eat” in Malay, and as the title of a cookbook featuring Southeast Asian cuisine, it’s pretty perfect. So it’s not surprising that London-based chef Elizabeth Haigh – who was born in Singapore and whose mother is Chinese Singaporean – named her first cookbook Makan.
When it arrived in bookstores earlier this year, “Makan was billed as something of a culmination of Haigh’s ascent

Image of the Titan chair (left) from the Secretlab website,  and image of the Egg chair from the Fritz Hansen website

What Secretlab can learn from the Egg chair's IP journey

For a company that made its name by designing gaming hardware beloved by gamers worldwide, this review of Razer’s first gaming chair last year perhaps stung a little: “It looks like Razer decided to largely copy one of today’s oft-cited favorites: the new $499 Razer Iskur is a dead ringer for the similarly-priced Secretlab Omega and Titan,” said The Verge of Razer’s entry into the red-hot gaming c

Images from Penguin Random House's Penguin Classics Marvel Collection website

Nothing is eternal — is this the start of a new era for comic book IP?

The recent announcement of a collaboration between esteemed publisher Penguin Classics and comics giant Marvel is the latest proof that comic book content is dominating the zeitgeist.
Later this year, they will be publishing special editions of Black Panther, Captain America, and The Amazing Spider-Man under the Penguin Classics Marvel Collection, which will mark the first time comics have bee

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