Call Me Kiki

My name is Kirsten. I'm a Los Angeles native who spent my formative years in London and New York City. I love non-fiction, documentaries, 1970s punk rock, pop art, sunshine, traveling, my cat Buddy + stiff drinks.

[callmekiki]

[time out]

[callmekiki]

A day will come, when, in the eye of the law, literary property will be as sacred as whiskey, or any other of the necessaries of life.

Mark Twain, speech in Montreal, Quebec, 1881.

[callmekiki]

Quirky NYC bartender wins 7 in a row on Jeopardy! (ABC News)

Austin Rogers, of New York City, has won more than $278,000 so far. The show said he's the first "streaker" of the season, winning seven nights in a row.

Has anyone else been watching Austin on Jeopardy?! I'm loving him!

[vaticanrust]

Debbie Harry on the roof of CBGB’s

[callmekiki]

Mark Ronson is facing another lawsuit over his smash hit "Uptown Funk," this time from the Lastrada Entertainment Company, Ltd., the music publishing house that holds the copyright to Zapp's 1980 funk classic "More Bounce to the Ounce." The suit was filed in U.S. District Court in New York on Tuesday (Sept. 12) against Ronson, producer Jeff Bhasker, Sony/ATV, Warner/Chappell, Vevo, Spotify, Apple and others.

Here we go again...

[callmekiki]

Netflix Cease-and-Desist to 'Stranger Things' Bar Is an Internet Hit (Fortune)

Smart marketing.

As Law 360 titled this - 

“You can send a cease-and-desist and not be a jerk about it.”

[callmekiki]

EU to find ways to make Google, Facebook and Amazon pay more tax (The Guardian)

European commission looks at tax rules after report reveals tech firms pay less than half the tax of traditional companies.

[callmekiki]

Portland's Wildfang looks to go legal after Forever 21's imitation - Portland Business Journal (Portland Business Journal)

The Portland apparel startup is preparing legal action after it was alerted to a Forever 21 shirt that looks a lot like Wildfang's flagship Wild Feminist shirt.

Glad to see there women using the law.

[callmekiki]

Should Congress regulate sexbots? Law prof sees need for hearings (ABA Journal)

George Washington University law professor John Banzhaf says the sexbot industry is raising concerns about whether the devices can promote criminal acts. [For example,] [s]ex robots can be programmed to simulate rape or can be made to look like children, yet they are not being regulated in the United States, Banzhaf says.

[callmekiki]

The company that invented Post-It notes is hiding invisible messages in signs to help self-driving cars see the world (Business Insider)

I’ve always thought post-its were one of the best inventions ever. When I recently received exceptional customer service from 3M, the company received a piece of my heart. Now, reading this, wow, its place in my heart is even larger. 3M is defenently a company for everyone to keeps its eyes on.

[callmekiki]

The CRISPR patent battle is back on as UC Berkeley files an appeal (TechCrunch)

A couple months ago I attended a CLE on human genome editing and learned how CRISPR is changing our capacilities to eradicate certain cancers. The lecturer also touched upon how this patent battle might delay such capabilities. Glad to see that UC Berkeley has finally filed an appeal.

(Sidenote: I used to walk past this building on my walk from BART to Boalt. Was always fun to think about all the discoveries happening behind those doors.)

[callmekiki]

Another song from Linkin Park’s epic performance at Los Angeles’ Griffith Observatory.

[callmekiki]

Years ago, I had the opportunity to manage this MTV News interview (and nightime b-roll shoot) with Linkin Park as they readied for their epic VMA performance high above Los Angeles at the Griffith Observatory. One of my most favorite production memories.

RIP Chester Bennington 

[callmekiki]

Do Last Week's European Copyright Votes Show Publishers Have Captured European Politics? (Electronic Frontier Foundation)

Three European Parliament Committees met during the week of July 10, to give their input on the European Commission's proposal for a new Directive on copyright in the Digital Single Market. We previewed those meetings last week, expressing our hope that they would not adopt the Commission's harmful...

[callmekiki]

I love reading the blog posts of my publicist friend, Rey, who shares the often very ridiculous writer-publicist communications he experiences. I came across this archived email today and thought in the vein of Rey’s posts that I might start sharing some of my own. It’s amazing the number of emails like this I’ve received over the past few years with regard to the events that I organized as a member of UC Hastings’ Association of Communications, Sports and Entertainment Law (ACSEL) and my involvement with specific American Bar Association (ABA) conferences. When I replied to this guy, Jason, “Which speakers are you looking to contact?” - he, of course, never wrote back. It’s very frustrating to experience, time and time again, such brainless and advantage-seeking correspondences. Contacts are highly valued when you’re a professional. Be humble when you ask for something. Put in some details to demonstrate some effort. Don’t correspond like Jason corresponded.

[callmekiki]

Ivanka Trump ordered to testify in lawsuit over shoe design (CBS News)

An Italian shoemaker is suing Ivanka Trump saying her Hettie shoe was "virtually identical" to its popular Wild Thing Shoe

Another day, another alleged copycat in the fashion industry.

[callmekiki]

How scientists in Britain are deciding the future of humanity (Newsweek)

Pioneering gene editing research has put the U.K. at the forefront of the next scientific revolution—whether the rest of the world is ready for it or not.

I'm very excited to attend a lecture on the legal and ethical ramifications of human genome editing tonight. Here's a great article/video I found while doing research to try to catch myself up on where science currently stands with human genome editing. Go ahead, expand your mind.