The following is the conversation with Yaron Brook, is the court of equalism fair and free market revolution, is also the current chairman of the Board of Tharian Institute. When I first discovered him, the idea of objectivism which he actually champions changed my word, you know, turned it upside down. There are things we hear that confirms what we know, but this actually turned it upside down.  So this conversation was recorded some weeks ago, before our outing at Jebu, the 2nd at Jebu. We spoke about capitalism, we even spoke about Shemkuti and the socialist idea, a very bad idea in my opinion. We spoke about religion, we talked about reason and fate, we talked about science, we talked about Africa's unity and where we are. So I'm very sure you guys will enjoy this conversation, you will enjoy this conversation and it will turn your word, you know, upside down in a good way, in a very good way. It's opening your mind to possibilities, some things you've never done before, some things, you know, like the idea of selfishness, selfishness being good and the way Aaron talked about it and the way Aaron is talking about it. So I like the idea of objectivism, I don't think it is, there are some things I'm trying to work out, work through right now. But it's great, you know, the conversion will be great, you enjoy it. You enjoy the conversion. Alright, I should actually shoot, I should actually start interview, you know.  How much do I know about Nigeria?  And Nigerian immigrants in the US do very, very well. But about the internal politics and the internal stuff going on in Nigeria, I know nothing. Alright, interesting.  Some of my followers are actually a fan of your show. Okay, cool. Alright, alright, I should start interview. A lot of people are not familiar with Ireland, you know. I got to know Ireland in detail through your interview with Lex Riemann. And then I looked you up, I've been a fan of yours. Your first interview with him, you know. I've been a fan of your show since then. So, can you give me a brief introduction into objectivism, you know, the philosophy of Ireland? Sure. I mean, it was both a philosopher and a novelist. Her most famous books are After Shrugged and the Fountainhead. And in those books and in a lot of her philosophical writings, what she does is presents a case for living on Earth, the best life that you can, you know, while you're alive on this planet, right? So, it's a philosophy that advocates that reason is our only means of knowing the world, that reason is a basic means of survival. It's what we should be cultivating. It's what we should be emphasizing. The standard for our life, the moral standard for our life should be our own happiness, our own success. Your own life should be your moral standard. You should live for yourself in that sense, not sacrificing yourself to other people, not expecting them to sacrifice for you. And the only political system that is appropriate for people pursuing their own happiness, pursuing their own life is capitalism. Capitalism is a system of freedom. It's a system of individual rights. It's a system in which the only job of government is to protect your right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. The only role of government is to protect you from cooks and fraudsters. So, she's not a status. She rejects both communism on the left, if you will, and fascism on the right. She rejects all forms of government intervention in the economy. It's not a losing philosophy about how to live your life the best that you can. Alright, alright. You said something just now about the limits, of how far should the governments go in the interference of people's lives? Basically, government should have almost no interference in people's lives.  ganzen аль  Ottawa ese  jotka tak  evangelical R 對 it and people would invade your country and and hurt you so the militia the only thing the government should be doing is a police a judiciary to arbitrate disputes and a military to protect your borders and that's it other than that the government should be hands off no well fit no regulations no controls the government should own no property should own no natural so called natural resources each all of that should be private and market should be left free to produce and consumer should be left free to consume all right all right then what's your take on on on the government's billing billing Tesla out no I think I think yearly the U.S. government gives Tesla some amount of money and the same thing is going on in Nigeria dangote you know I don't know if you know dangote is the richest black african black man you know and is Niger and and the government in Nigeria bills bills amount every single year no so what's your take on that I mean obviously I'm against it I'm against any government if over the economy both bailout subsidies but I'm also against regulation and and and taxes so the government should just stay out of all economic activities I mean I wish I wish we had a constitution that separated state from economics that is the state cannot intervene in the economy not in the positive in the sense of bailing people out or the negative in a sense of regulating them and shutting them down the government has often forced companies to shut down as picked winners and losers and you know it's often bailed out companies whether it's Tesla whether it's the banks during the financial crisis whether it's an insurance company AIG join the financial crisis or solar panel manufacturers all kinds of companies are constantly being bailed out by the government government should have zero zilch no involvement so what do you mean by regulation in taxes you know you're against regulation in taxes I'm I you know government should have no ability to tell me who I can hire how much to pay them what kind of benefits to give them all of those are regulations your the government should have no no say in what product I sell what the quality of the product is what the safety record of the product is you know unless I'm committing fraud the government has no business telling me what I can I cannot sell if if somebody is hood by my product they have the ability to sue me if it turns out that I put out the product purposefully to hood people then the government can intervene but you know so no safety regulations no you know if if if no workplace safety regulations for example if workers think that my workplace is too dangerous don't come to work you know you refuse to work or demand a a risk premium on your wages but it's none of the government's business all of that is to be negotiated between workers and and the companies between the companies and the consumers all of that and and then of course people have recourse against the company if they can show that a company was negligent then they can sue the company and that's what the courts are they for so there's liability law if you buy a product and it turns out not to work the way you expected it to work you can sue me and then we have a legal system that that you know determines whether you're right or I'm right but the government shouldn't try to preempt and tell me your product has to be have these dimensions and be made of this material and have these qualities and those kind of regulations should all be banned they should not be allowed and and all this is predicated on the on the on the belief on the sense that people are capable of capable of making choices you know are people capable of making choices for themselves now I absolutely it's it's all contingent on the idea that fundamentally what makes us human is the fact that we are rational we all have that capacity to think and to choose our own values that to make estimations about the risk we're willing to take that doesn't mean we don't make mistakes it doesn't mean that some people out there in the world default on the responsibility of being rational and and and act stupidly but the fact that somebody else act irrationally does not give you or the government the right to penalize me who acting rationally so by regulating with treating everybody the same and with assuming that everybody nobody can act rationally so I'm saying yeah people people do stupid things but that's their problem and let them figure that out and let them recover from it don't penalize the rational don't penalize the mall for the sins of the irrational or the immoral all right all right and and you measure something about the way first it's you know like like the way first it's the west first it's basically given to those who have who have the ability to actually provide all the way to actually provide the ability to actually provide for themselves you know but don't you actually think you need government to serve as a patron of some sense you know patron actually collects money and actually it turns it turns back to the creator so do you think people if giving a chance to actually give to the community we actually give back to the community without you know willingly you know people do that well first of all I hate the term give back because you didn't take anything so what are you giving back to you only give back after you've taken right so you haven't taken anything so it would people give well it depends right I think the government today gives way too much welfare to way too many people people who can take care of themselves people in a free market who would have jobs and who would be doing much much better much much better financially and psychologically if they weren't dependent on government handouts in a free market very very very very few people cannot take care of themselves cannot feed their own families cannot get a job cannot work cannot make what people call a living wage I think what suppresses wages is the welfare state is the regulatory state is government intervention in the economy so let's have a free market and then encourage people to get a job and then eliminate welfare now for the fraction the tiny less than 1% of people who cannot work who cannot take it themselves will they be enough welfare absolutely will they be enough charity sorry absolutely Americans in free countries generally unbelievable charitable they're happy to help people who have no fault of their own suffering or have not been successful and have and a struggling my I'm convinced they'd be more charity than people would know what to do with and that charity would then be focused on the kind of project and the kind of people that the that the contributors would be interested in so it wouldn't be a one size fit all let's just take people's money and give it to a bunch of bureaucrats to figure out how to dole out and for the government in the U.S. we have like a thousand different welfare programs that they local level the state level at the federal level all kinds of different programs super inefficient instead donors would insist that they money be used efficiently productively to help people who really needed help and I have no doubt and indeed if you go back to the 19th century you know America grew up if you will really through the 1960s with zero welfare I mean after after the 1930s there was a little bit through through social security but generally there was no welfare for poor people that isn't it that is something that was created during primarily during the 1960s before that particularly in the 19th century people were taking care of through charity and there was plenty of charity there were also all kinds of innovations like market innovation the beauty of a marketplace is they innovate in ways that we find it hard to imagine but for example there was such a thing as as poverty insurance so when you have a job you could buy insurance that would pay you back if at some point you reach a certain level of a threshold of poverty if you became poorer then you would get start getting insurance payments there was unemployment insurance not an employment insurance paid for by the government but employment insurance paid for by private insurance companies there were all kinds of mutual aid societies where people would get together and pay into a fund that would then take care of them at times of bad economic outcomes so there are plenty of ways in which we can voluntarily without the use of coercion without the use of force take care of people who for whatever reason cannot at a given point in time take care of themselves Tomasuo actually wrote the book on this on the welfare state he said the welfare state destroyed the black African-Americans groups absolutely destroys you not only economically because you become dependent on the welfare and you don't go out and strive for jobs but it also destroys you psychologically because one of the ways in which human beings achieve self-esteem and through that self-esteem ultimately achieve happiness and prosperity and self-confidence and good jobs is through the work that you do even if you're poor the fact that you're working and putting food on the table is an immense source of pride when that is taken away from you because you're now getting a check from the government instead of working that pride is decimated and your self-esteem is destroyed and therefore you cannot achieve happiness and you become dependent you become bitter and you become unhappy and it destroys whole communities so absolutely I agree with Tomasuo that the welfare state is the worst thing that's happened to the African-American community and to poor people more broadly alright but how do you incorporate morality into capitalism I got a CEO who actually called me sometimes I think last year and he asked me how much should he pay his workers his workers and he asked me he doesn't actually know how much he is supposed to pay them no matter how much he pays them they would want more and he feels guilty of some sorts he feels guilty for not paying them enough as much as they want and also he feels like he shouldn't pay them as much as they are demanding so how do you incorporate how much you pay your workers well first of all you don't owe your workers anything but compensation for their productive capacity so you base how much you pay them on how productive they are and what the market will be that is if you pay them too little they will leave you if you pay them too much it's going to be very difficult for you to make a profit because your competitors are paying their employees less and they will out compete you on price so you have to pay your workers the right amount where you can make a profit and well they they might complain but where they are going to feel like this is this is worth their while that is they won't leave you they won't go to your competitors they won't go work somewhere else so that balance is achieved in the marketplace through supply and demand and you look at how many companies pay their workers it doesn't vary that much for a given level of skill given level of productivity if you pay too much again you become less profitable if you pay too little workers will leave you so this is taking care of in the marketplace and it's not an issue of morality well it is an issue of morality only in the sense that morality demands that you act justly what does justice mean justice means people treating people the way they deserve and from perspective of wages from the perspective of business generally what does somebody deserve well it depends how productive they are so their desert depends on their productivity which is how you determine wages not based on guilt you owe them nothing so guilt you should never feel guilty about this not based on social pressure not based on a morality of sacrifice you know their demands are based on the idea that because you have you owe them you must sacrifice to them because they do not have they are more needy than you but that is the morality of altruism and that is a morality I reject you should be self interested in all of your activities in life including in business and you should pay your employees that amount that will maximize your productivity and profits ultimately long term not in the short run and that demands that they don't leave you and that means that they are motivated to work hard for you and that means that you but you are not paying them so much that you don't earn a profit can you speak a little bit on self interest self interest what do you define by that how do you define self interest and selfishness so self interest and selfishness are pursuing your own rational goals using your rationality using your reason in pursuit of those goals so picking goals picking values the further your life and then using reason to achieve those values so self interest is not about emotion it's not about it's not about when it's not about the short term it's about what's really good for you so you know there could be I don't know a line of cocaine here and I know if I take the cocaine I'll get high and people say well it's in your self interest and I'll get high and I go no because I know what cocaine does to me long term I know the damage that it causes me it plays it's chemicals in my brain brain is my most valuable asset I don't want to mess with that no even though I get a short term high my long term interests are not to take the cocaine so the whole point of the whole idea of self interest for human beings for every human being is that rationality is the way in which we survive over the long run and therefore in choosing our goals and in choosing our actions and in choosing our values and in making every choice in our life we need to be rational and that means we need to think long term about the consequences and for that what we need in order to make our choices more efficient and more productive we need principles so we need a set of principles that guide our actions and that's what morality provides us that's what a morality of self interest a morality of egoism and a morality of selfishness provides us it provides us with principles to guide our actions so for example be rational be honest so that you don't every time calculate oh is honesty good for me now should I do it what the long term consequences no prove to yourself once that honesty is a good strategy that dishonesty is self destructive should act that way so we talked about justice be just you know be productive so we can go through the principles that guide your self interest but you need morality if you're going to be selfish because you need principles to guide your self interest and the fact is what is self interested for you at an abstract level and what is self interested for me is the same you know we achieve it in the same way every human being on the planet structured fundamentally in the same way we're all human beings and therefore we're all the same kind of animal and given that we're the same kind of animal the same principles apply to all of us in terms of attaining our goals so why are people so attracted to to stories of heroes and of great sacrifice for powders why do you feel you know to some extent the movies we watch like I think I mentioned Batman and Superman and these movies of great sacrifice for powders why are we so attracted to those why are we so attracted to Jesus Christ why are we so attracted to those attracted to saints so who make great sacrifices for others why are we so attracted to those stories because we've been brainwashed to do it I mean not brainwashed but we've been a whole value system is basically structured around Christianity it's structured around the idea that the individual doesn't matter that the whole point of life is to sacrifice for others to sacrifice for God or to sacrifice for the community for your friends for the nation for the religion for whatever for the poor, the meek, the needy that your life in other words means nothing that's what Jesus Christ symbolizes the fact that his life was meaningless that what mattered is all of our sins he died for our sins he didn't sin, he was perfect he died for our sins I can't think of a more evil thing in the world I don't consider Jesus a hero I consider Jesus a tragic horrible, pathetic character right to the extent that he did this willingly because it was the will of God so no this is not a good thing you know, Batman it's terrible how people treat Batman and he should stop the whole point of Atlas Shrug I don't know if you've read Atlas Shrug if you haven't I've checked the review online the review online but I haven't the books are not available yet all the reviews are you can download it onto your iPad or Kindle I mean it's all available on Kindle electronic you should definitely read Atlas Shrug the one point of Atlas Shrug is that Batman should shrug he should say enough I'm not sacrificing my life all this and the nice thing about the trilogy the Batman trilogy if you remember is that the end of the third movie he's in Paris having a good time and screw Metropolis screw the city they didn't appreciate what he was doing you only suffered for them and the real heroic thing to do to be a real hero is to live for yourself is to live a good life now I don't like the superhero movies I don't like the superhero movies for two reasons one it assumes that to be a hero you have to be super you have to have some special ability and that's why of all the superhero movies I like Batman the most because they it's all man made there's no super video and second I don't like them because to them being a hero means the sacrifice I hate the fact that spider man is never going to get the girl and it's positioned that way that he cannot get the girl and will never get the girl why can't you find why can't we create a superhero that gets the girl there's happy in life that does his job he saves humanity but he saves humanity while having a good time and enjoying himself and getting the girl and having great sex and living a good life that is a real superhero a real hero is somebody who embraces life and lives a good life and yeah I mean I'm all for if it's your profession to protect you know if you're a policeman if you're a fireman if you're a soldier to be brave and that's what you signed up for is to protect people but not as an act of sacrifice as an act of fighting for your values as an act for fighting for the kind of world you want to live in but you see the whole mission of Christianity and the whole mission of secular philosophy post Christianity you know has been to tell the individual he's worthless to tell the individual the whole purpose of his life is to serve others and that's what I ran that's what Aristotle that's what some philosophers here and there have rejected and that's what I think every individual should reject and until we reject and in order to get to an ideal society in order to get to the point where we eliminate the horrors that still exist in our world we need to get to a point where we elevate the individual above the community and where we elevate a morality of egoism above a morality of altruism all right all right I think we should come back to objectivism in general what does objectivism say about the idea man the objective philosophy what does this about the idea man well the ideal man is somebody who lives for himself the ideal man is somebody who is rational who makes decision based on reason based on facts based on evidence based on assessment of that evidence it doesn't mean he never makes mistakes but it means that he always tries to take into account all of the evidence and all of the facts an ideal man never evades never pretends not to see things never ignores evidence of facts that is out there and who lives for himself an ideal man put in need the sacrificing himself for other people or other people to himself he lives in an attempt striving to achieve his own happiness engaging with people on the basis of trade on the basis of win-win relationship when nobody is expected to sacrifice to anybody else whether it's love which is the most selfish of all relationships or friendship or in economics in work actual engaging in trade so that's what an ideal man is the idea of of living for yourself do you think this is something I don't know I think someone I think someone mentioned this online also I don't know do you think this is something that should be you know that should be but do you think people would is this one of those things if you often enough people take it take it to the extreme like the ideal man love is selfish I'm basically loving you for myself this is my thing I'm with you because of me not basically because of you or I don't know but do you think if people if we repeat these things often enough love is selfish live for yourself people could take this to the extreme that it could actually remove the spirituality of the communion of interpersonal relations I think it would make interpersonal relations better I think it would improve the world dramatically but we need to be careful not to suggest that when we say these things what we mean by them is I don't know some kind of subjectivism some kind of Wim worship emotionalism what we need to be really clear is about that self-interest requires effort self-interest is hard being selfish requires real work it requires the work of being rational it requires the work of judging people it requires the work of thinking before acting it requires the work of integrating your emotions with your ideas and that's hard and that's what we need when people start embracing that idea I think the world becomes a dramatically better place and every time the world is approached an attitude of individualism an attitude of people living for themselves things have gone well you could argue then in the latter part of the enlightenment people were taking on that attitude you could argue that in ancient Greece there was that attitude alive you could argue the 19th century America had that attitude and I think those are some of the freest periods in human history with exception of course of the existence of slavery in the US and in Greece now slavery as I have existed before before before we were very long time shall you know you know slavery is always slavery is always it's only capitalism and the enlightenment that ultimately got rid of slavery got rid of slavery and I this is I think I mentioned my first email to you this guy this guy is a socialist but and it's a very good one I don't mean the idea is good but it's very good as conveying his words and ideas and his basic comments that he always iterates is that is that now what about slavery what about exploitation in capitalism that those are actually results of capitalism like you know and I constantly and slavery is the opposite of capitalism slavery slavery is the negation of capitalism and indeed capitalism got rid of slavery is the two most capitalist countries in the world England and the United States in the 19th century that eliminated slavery within their countries eliminated the slave trade and you know it's the it's the capitalism the system of capitalism is based on the idea of treating individuals as traders as you know as the whole idea is anti-exploitation the whole idea is win-win relationships if you're not winning from this relationship I'm free to walk away and that's the negation of slavery and the negation of all exploitation so where exactly does it deviate from the idea because I think when we focus on individuals the group tends to suffer and when we focus on the group the individual tends to suffer and because once we ... ... the more the more the more the more the more the more ... ... ... is is completely wrong ... మాారంమాము మాార్టికన içinde మిదా nom నినాసె మోత్డ్. నితె. సpectě cho username మాకమనిటహడవార్కను సగిస్క్. గఇ సటిఁఉ ఇర౗రంకికి. మనిక్టమా Educationleb life difficult for everyone. Sure, but what what causes inflation? Yeah, that is the question. Well, the question is the only cause of inflation is government. It's it's the central bank. And it's government deficits. It's a government spending more than it brings in. So it's the combination of central banks, printing money and the government spending, like there's no deficit spending, which causes inflation. So under capitalism, there's no real inflation on the country and the capitalism prices drop over time. Prices actually go down. So this idea that inflation is caused by markets is just wrong. It's never been right. Inflation is a pure creation of government. And second, the whole idea of inequality is a bogus idea. I wrote a whole book on it. You should buy it. Yeah, and you should read. Yeah, it's called equal is unfair. And the whole point is that if I'm an empirical perspective, it's just not true under capitalism. There's massive social mobility, the more capitalist, the more individualistic, the smaller, the more limited the government, the less government interference there is, the more socially mobile people are. So if you care about social mobility, if you care about the poor's ability to rise up, what you want is more capitalism, more individualism, less government intervention, less government involvement. What causes the lack of mobility in modern societies today, what causes the poor to be stuck, a government programs, welfare, licensing laws, regulations that limit employment, those are the things that restrict the ability of companies of poor people to rise up and become wealthy. But in the 19th century in the heyday of capitalism, social mobility was super fast and prevalent. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So under this philosophy, this philosophy, do you think it's adversely something to be praised or do you think people would, do you think we could have harmony, harmony, like, like, you know, this Chinese Chinese Chinese Chinese are a fan of harmony, you know, and, and yeah, I do think we could have this under, under an individualistic society in an individualistic society. Do you think the only society, the only society that can achieve harmony, is an individualistic society? But what about all the societies? All non-individualistic societies bring about disharmony. They bring about warfare, violence, tribalism. I mean, you can, you can see, you can see everywhere in the world, you know, Africa, which is the least individualistic continent in terms of culture is the least harmonious culture. Wow. If you if you look at if you look at Europe, before the industrial revolution, they were fighting all the time. There was a war. Every decade, there was a major war. People swatter each other because of their religion, because of their nationality, because they, you know, because their prince didn't like their prince, whatever, constant warfare in Europe, throughout the centuries, until capitalism, until individualism, until the enlightenment. And then if you look from the Napoleonic Wars until World War One, peace. And then with the rise of ideas about collectivism, anti-individualism, racism, all the other ideas that started socialism, communism, that rose up in Europe during the early 20th century, that harmony was shattered by what? By collectivism. And then if you look at post World War Two Europe, again, a period of relative individualism, you get peace again. Now Europe is again breaking into tribes and into collectivism, and ideas of collectivism, and you see more conflict and more strife than ever before. So it's exact opposite. The most harmonious societies are individualistic societies that take their individualism seriously. And the more collectivism, the more tribal the more sacrifice you expect from people, the more Christian the societies are, the more violence there will be. But what about China? From the from the Athenian Empire to the Greek Empire to the British Empire, you know, every single group that actually rose into economic prosperity actually had some series of war war to actually age age age rise. But China, which I think is is actually a collective society because of the philosophy of Confucianism and the basic Communist Party actually rose without any form of violence, at least to an extent, I understand the problem they are having with because in China, I can recognize that but but it is the only society, I think, actually rose without any form of violence to their to their neighbors, not to their to to nations around the world with, you know, I don't know what you're talking about. But but the fact is that China's history, if you look at 5,000 years of Chinese history, it is filled with violence, constant warfare, constant struggle within China. So they keep a king will rise up you'll unify all of China create a Chinese empire. And then a few generations later it'll break up and they'll be civil war and they'll fight each other out. And then you can rise up and unify them all. And then it'll break up again. It's a constant up and down and up and down and up and down. And the fact is that because of this and because of the collectivistic nature of China and its tribal elements, that's what causes the civil wars, you know, all the different factions within China. Because of that China, in spite of the fact that it led the West for during many centuries, in terms of wealth and prosperity has lagged, it took the Chinese to catch up with the industrial revolution. It took them almost 200 years to catch up to the West. And today it's still significantly poorer than the West on a per capita GDP China is still poor. And the only reason China is relatively rich today, as compared to its history, is because starting in 1978 it is embraced principles of individualism. It is embraced principles of capitalism. It the areas in China that have done wealth economically are those areas in China where the government has left individuals alone to pursue their own profit to not they haven't regulated them. They haven't taxed them heavily. And they've allowed them to flourish. They've allowed the individuals to pursue their own lives. And that has created harmony, the harmony of capitalism. Now with Xi in power, trying to crush that and trying to regulate that and trying to control that. I believe China is going to enter a period of decline because it is reverting back to its old collectivism. It's reverting back to its old centralization of power and centralization of planning. And as a consequence of that, I think China is in decline. So it's when China embraces elements of individualism, it rises. And when it reverts to its tribalism and collectivism, it declines. So what about the cultural cultural suffering, you know, like, you know, we do you think people would the cultural suffering, you know, I notice to retain the cultural elements, Chinese cultural elements, I want to notice is that they stop the like the restricted, at least socially, you know, the connection the society has to to the worst. I think I'm not say that again, I'm not sure I understand you. Okay, I mean to as in to preserve the cultural heritage for Chinese preserve the cultural heritage and I know they are they are they are very conscious of this during the chain dynasty, let's change, you know, let's change the dynasty before, before Mao, chain dynasty, what they did something to the old Buddha, the which actually if you go, if you go to China, if you go to Shanghai, yeah, it looks like a western country.  They this these cities are not built in Chinese principles, these cities are built on Western principles, the ideas of capitalism, individualism, a profit of self interest. That's where the wealth has come from. Now she doesn't like that. So he's trying to bring back these Chinese collectivistic elements, but that is going to hamper restrict and restrain the ability of China to grow. I believe there is only one good culture. There's only one good civilization. I'm not a multiculturalist. I don't believe that all cultures are equal. I believe one culture is better than everybody. And that culture is the culture of capitalism and individualism. It is a culture of freedom. It's a culture which leaves individuals alone to pursue their own happiness with their use of their own mind pursuing their own goals.  So I think China today is heading in the wrong direction. And I think the only reason it succeeded is because for a while there on the dunk track pen and then the people came after that dang, they sued an anti Chinese culture, they pursued a Western culture. And that's what led to this success. So it's Chinese culture is not good. It's too collectivistic. It's not good. It's not a good culture. It's too collectivistic. It's too family oriented. It's too sacrificial. And it's not individualistic enough. And I think what's happened, what scares Xi right now what scares the Communist Party in China right now is that after 40 years of relative freedom, many Chinese are rejecting Chinese culture and adopting a more individualistic style lifestyle. And that scares the authorities. And that's why they're trying to clamp down on it. But look, people including Chinese have been trying to move to the United States for 200 years. Why? To go to a better place, which means a better culture. You know, America has had with, you know, some obvious exceptions, but it has generally a better culture than anywhere else. Why? Because it's an individualistic culture. You can be what you want to be in this culture. And that's why the Chinese emigrated here in the late 90th century until America stopped that for racist reasons. And that's why people from Latin America from Africa from Europe, everybody wants to come here. Not because we're worse, but because we're better. And if the rest of the world wants to become better, they should try to copy the good things about America, what made America great. And that's true of China. And that's true of any every country. So I think that is right. And I think the when we're doing China's rise and in Japan's rise, you know, in the nineties, 1960s or so, foreign, foreign Chinese came back to invest in China, like Chinese from hand, working back to invest in China. And Japan is also they came back to your country to invest in Japan, you know, isn't Japan Japan Japan because of an atomic bomb was dropped on them. Then basically what that bomb symbolized is that your culture sucks. Your culture led to this massive disaster. Yeah, your culture is no good. You know, this fascism, the shintoism, this this idea of collectivism is no good.  And it's interesting that the Japanese took a constitution that was written by General MacArthur, an American style constitution. There was forced on them. And that constitution has helped them become one of the richest country in the world. And it's helped them become one of the most successful countries in the world. Not because of Chinese culture, but because the rejection of Chinese culture and the adoption of Western values, that is the values of individualism. And that's why Japan has done so well. It's done so well because it embraced those individualistic principles, those principles of relative freedom. I wish they'd embraced them more consistently if they had, they would be even better. But the returning, the returning, the only Chinese investing in their country, choosing to invest in their country, and that was the time, okay, that was this time I tried to, I tried to get a job in D.S. A remote job from D, from in D.S. And I got some response that it was during this coronavirus period at least about two years ago, so a year ago. Yeah, and I got some response that the Americans would actually prefer to wire Americans because they want the money to actually stay in their country.  And the same thing for Chinese returning investment in Chinese investment, isn't that from a collectivist ideal? No, yes, but that's because they collectivist and that's bad. These are bad people. And it's a bad ideology. You know, Americans should want to hire the best most qualified people no matter where they come from. And America shouldn't care about whether the money leaves America because the dollars ultimately will flow back to America and the money leaving America is meaningless. It doesn't hurt America that the money goes overseas. On the country, it better establishes the dollar as a global currency. So, no, you know, the Chinese went back to invest in China to some extent because their family then they care about China, but to some extent because they wanted to make money. China presented them with a great opportunity to make money. And they went back and they made money. And that's a good capitalist individualistic self-interest thing to do. And Americans should want to hire talented people from Nigeria because they want to make money. Not be tribal and only hire Americans. I think America is in decline. I think America is fading as a bastion of liberty and a bastion of freedom because of this kind of mentality. All right. I think we should return to the philosophical ideas of objectivism. You know, I think we should that is not for the economy. You know, I think we should. So, this is a question that I have been grappling with. I had Steven Pinkham on my podcast some days ago, you know, and we talked about morality. We talked about ethics and do you think people, if everyone follows the rules of logic, do you think at least morally, objectivism actually signifies some kind of objective idea that if we all applied the rules of logic and reason would not come to the same conclusion. Am I right? Am I right about that? We would all come to the same conclusions about the principles. About what are the principles that should guide you morally. But we wouldn't come to the same conclusions about the specific values that each one of us pursues. We wouldn't all decide on the same profession. We wouldn't all fall in love with the same woman. We wouldn't all pursue the same art. So, there's a lot of factors that go into it. But if we were all logical, if we were all rational, we would all come up with the same principles to guide our lives. Yes, because those principles are based on human nature as a universal, not in the specific specifics of your values and make up.  The standard is human life. The standard is looking at human life and saying what leads the successful human life and what the story is human life. What is good for human beings? What is bad for human beings? So, it's an empirical question. We can look into reality, evaluate it, come up with some principles and then test those principles logically, make sure they are logically all integrated, that they're all logically all connected. But that is the basis, yes. And you are against passing these conclusions through, I watched your debates with Yoram on Lexima podcast standard. You are against passing these conclusions, you know, through traditions and dogmas, you know. Do you think, do you think everyone is capable of making these, I don't know, do you think everyone is capable of making the, as in making the tax, you know, as in doing the tax of actually thinking for themselves, about what to do, probably not, probably not. Right. But a lot of people are and I think that it's the responsibility of the people who can think for themselves, who have the intelligence to understand a complex philosophical issue. It's their responsibility to do the work and then go out and teach people what it means, how to do it, how to live well. And at some level, everybody can understand what that means and how in what it's done. And you know, that those, that cultural transmission from the intellectuals to the masses, that's what needs to happen. But it can't just be, okay people, you should all be egoistic because that's our tradition. The intellectual has to be able to explain to the people why they should act in their self interest, not at the same level of detail that a philosopher would require, but at a level of detail that an average person can get, can comprehend. But if you, if your basis for thinking something is good is because it's always been done this way, that is a recipe for ultimately for disaster because it doesn't mean they have to invest anytime in really understanding how it works and it doesn't, it doesn't entail them actually having to defend it. And somebody else can come and say, yeah, but I have a tradition too, and my tradition is different. No, we have to be able to provide logical explanations at the level appropriate for the people hearing our explanations. So every generation has to relearn these things. The intellectuals at a very high level and the common people at a lower level, but still at some level. So as in what is the contrast between between this and freedom, you know, I think when, when, when, between what between objectivism and as in this ideal of objectivism individualist in the individual aspect of it and you know, thank you for yourself and and and freedom, you know, freedom to do what you want and and what is the contrast between it all. Well, it's important. It's important in the sense that if you believe that people don't have reason and therefore cannot take care of themselves and need to have their hand held need to like Yom Khazani believes that people cannot take care of themselves. They won't do the right thing. We need to guide them. We need to help them. We need to hold their hand and we need to force them. We need to cause them. Then you're going to believe in statism. Then you're not going to be pro freedom to be pro freedom means to be pro the idea that individuals can take care of themselves that they can make the right choices about their own life that they do have agency and that agency is meaningful. That is, it can result in something positive and good in the world. Okay. And but how do you make sure this this ideas are passed down through generations, you know, you know, like it's called education. It's the same way that all ideas are passed on from one generation to another. It's not about tradition. It's about education. I mean, how how will Christian ideas be passed on for for for you know, centuries education preaching explanation education education education from when you're young all the way through and and through training training young people to use their mind not training them on the ideas training them on the efficaciousness of their mind by teaching them to think one of the things we don't do enough of in school is to teach people how to think that's what we should be doing and you do that by teaching them both facts and methodology. All right. That was something I I mentioned to you through my the first time I the time I actually first time I actually made you I mentioned how to break my my tax my my goal in breaking the ethnic ethnic division in Nigeria. I think I mentioned that and I wanted to do that through education with you with you have any objection to my methods. You know, I have these nonprofits. I plan on partnering with the government to actually educate the whole of the country now and actually we educate the whole of the country because I think the current educational system in Nigeria has actually done a bad job at educating the whole country. That's why people are so tribe by you know and I don't think most people are even able to actually identify what the problem is what the problem with the country is you know at the moment you know there is an election coming up next year and and and people are I don't speak on politics generally on my on my on my twitter or on twitter media but I think people are making the wrong choice again once again I'm making yeah yeah in in but that's because so I think you're right the problem in Nigeria like in most of the world is tribalism it's it's collectivism if you can partner with your nonprofit can partner with the government it actually be effective in educating people and not be overly controlled by the government right yeah you're making a deal with the devil right yeah and and you have to be careful that they don't take over your curriculum but if you can actually promote a curriculum that supports freedom that'd be good it would be better if you could work with private schools and if you would encourage the creation of private schools and I know there are a lot of private schools in Nigeria yeah but to promote a good positive curriculum that teaches people how to think for themselves there's nothing more important than teaching people how to think for themselves nothing and all other problems will go away if we can just do that yeah so this is my last question for this you know for this engagement you know what do you think what do you think is the is the mean of it or you know I think you are an advocate for reason and and this was a topic we discussed on on I have this show coming up next week and next Friday and people are like like I shouldn't some people told me to not be so as in it's not be so quick to diminish religion and and and and faith and because it gives me to push lives and and and that is what I'm trying to do by to break the ethnic boundary in Nigeria that is what I'm trying to do so so what are your views on religion and and what do you think is the mean of your views on religion you are Jewish you know kind of I was born Jewish but look religion is a primitive form of philosophy but it's not a very good philosophy it's a philosophy ultimately of irrationality of mysticism and a morality of altruism and therefore religion plays into tribalism and ultimately violence part of the problem you have in Nigeria is religion I mean look at what what what some in the name of Islam are doing in northern part of your country and what we are arguing for is the rejection of faith the rejection of mysticism the rejection of altruism and the problem in our society in your society in particular is that people find meaning in religion instead of finding meaning in their own lives instead of finding meaning in their careers instead of finding meaning in their relationships instead of finding meaning in themselves they seek meaning in some other being that's the problem in the world that's the problem that needs to be solved we need to bring people away from religion and focused on their own well-being focused on their own life and focused on their own reason that's how you save the world and we need to save it from religion among other things religion and tribalism and collectivism of all forms so what should replace replace religion this is a question this is a question philosophy replaces religion and and and philosophy that's why you need philosophy i mean has a wonderful essay called philosophy who needs it it's online for free go read it it's a fantastic essay everybody needs philosophy philosophy should replace religion everybody should adopt a philosophy and live by a philosophy and you know the the the idea that we need religion is very sad and very destructive yeah yeah all right thanks for coming on my show it's been one hour i think we do this once you know when i'm when i'm when i go through the books uh your book and and and book i will invite you back on sounds good thanks then you'll and uh good luck with the show thank you thank you


Hi everyone, Sean with jaspyscasebreaks.com here doing random number block randomizer for 2020 gold standard football pick your team number 20, including the Chargers, Bangles, Dolphins, Eagles, Cowboys, Broncos, and the Lions. So this works just like every other random number block where you get a spot, every spot gets a random number from zero through nine. If you number three, you'll get all cards with three being the first number next to the slash on the left side of the slash for those teams listed above. For example, if the card is 13 out of 99, 3 out of 25, 43 out of 49, 93 out of 99, and so on, number three, we'll get the card, all redemptions go to the zero spot, even if it is a known one of one redemption, it will go to the zero spot. All in-person one of ones would go to the one spot. So here is our list of customers from read down to Jesse and our numbers from zero down to nine. Dice roll to randomize both lists and combo them six and a three nine times.  Two, doesn't show this, but it's saying waiting for random.org. There you go. Three, four, strawberry, always strawberry, and it's jammed. Five, six, seven, it was nine, right? Six and three, nine, eight, and ninth and final time. David down to Jeremy and nine times on the numbers. Ninth and final time from zero down to five. Okay, David Alsop with zero, Benjamin Johnson with nine, Jesse Weibright with three, Benjamin Johnson with four, Daniel Massey with one, Reed Pierce with seven, Jesse Weibright with six, and last spot mojo with eight, Justin Perry with two, and Jeremy Agno with five. Box it and sort. So David Alsop with zero gets any and all redemptions for these one, two, three, four, five, six, seven teams in the random number block, even known one of one redemptions while Daniel Massey would get any and all in person one of one. So that is the random number block randomizer for gold standard football, random number block, pick your team number 20, Chargers, Bengos, Dolphins, Eagles, Cowboys, Broncos, and Lions. I'm Sean, jaskyskatesbricks.com, pick your team 20, gold standard football coming up next, jaskyskatesbricks.com.


Got the short shorts on today going down the stairs headed to a dunk day. It's a beautiful day. I woke up. It's planet Earth Hit 30k.  You know just happen time to enjoy I feel like a space cadet in this thing. Yo, so 30k what more can I say? Enjoy your day and I could rhyme all day, but I'm not I'm not gonna just want to dunk Just want to dunk dunk dunk dunk just want to dunk gotta heal the hamstring. I gotta celebrate that. It's a fun day I hope you have fun and hope you enjoy your day. Thanks for watching already, and I hope you continue to watch. Oh Hey guys, haha, I'm on my way to the gym now Young Austin Berkey shows up to the gym. He has no Instagram. I don't think he's on social media This is his own problem.  So it's giving me focus on my dribble dunks. I like it Let's go my one foot feels better than ever. Just got to keep building on it slowly I can't make a huge game save. I'll be super happy if I get one foot two hands I love that I love that. Oh, I've wanted that dunk for so long. It's all it took me so long to get the tiny processes, right? finally Getting over my mental thing. I'm like how to how to take off properly.  God that feels good But that awkward major progress. I can't wait to get that consistent Baby rim neck it from the slow approach to pull approach. I'll murder it Hey on my tomahawk. I keep jumping like After rim, I gotta just like take off and go off first I might have tweaked something, you know jumping a little bit off a little so much force So I might I might cut it in a lot of progress definitely mentally and off the dribble which is my focus today So I guess it's a win, but when I come back, it's gonna be so much fun I feel like I can actually improve on that. It's been forever But it took a lot of unlearning to get to here I had to I had to get over bad habits first which takes so much time. Okay That's the end the right there make an intro ends it up making an anthem


Hello everyone. This is Trademarks in the Metaverse, new opportunities and challenges. So first I'd like to say thanks for letting me crash the party by way of introduction. I'm a lawyer. I'm Chief Brand Counsel for the Linux Foundation. So what does that mean? I help the Linux Foundation protect its trademarks and the trademarks of all the projects that we host and the marks for our events like this. I'm a US-based attorney. So pretty much everything I'll be talking about today is based on US law. In some specific situations, I'll be talking about laws in other countries but I'll flag that when I do. And one of the other things that I do is I serve on the International Trademark Association's Emerging Issues Committee. A couple housekeeping items. While I am a lawyer, I'm not your lawyer. So today's presentation is not legal advice. You may not rely upon it as such. This presentation does not necessarily represent the views of the Linux Foundation or projects that we host or into. So I mentioned into. I'm just not expanding on my resume to impress you as I'm sure that does. The reason I mentioned into is the Emerging Issues Committee has various subcommittees and I serve on the new Emerging Issues Committee. So that means we're tasked with examining issues on the very front line that might be relevant to trademarks. Sometimes we look at something and there's just simply nothing to look at and it goes away. Other times we have to take a deeper dive. And this was one of those situations. The Interborder of Directors asked us last year to investigate trademarks and the metaverse. Our subcommittee produced a report on this which was released last month. I would say go and check it out. You're more than welcome to but the target audience really is trademark lawyers. But the reason that I'm here today is that the exercise of researching the topic discussing it with a various number of people and then writing up this report is I do think there are some things that are worthwhile sharing with with this audience. And just so I have a sense I'd like to get a little better understanding of this audience. So are there any lawyers in the room? Okay. Good. Are there developers in the room? Excellent. Okay. All right. That's helpful. And I know we have at least one marketing professional. So that kind of checks my three boxes of who I thought I was going to be speaking with today. All right. So we're going to talk about trademarks in the metaverse. But I do need to kind of lay the groundwork on the trademark side of things. So I'm going to run through some specific topics about trademarks and trademark law that are going to be important in the second half of the discussion. So I'll try to be as quick as I can, but also keep it interesting. One thing that we discovered in the process of putting together the inter-report is that at the conceptual level it seems pretty straightforward. It's like, yeah, people are going to use trademarks in the metaverse and you should protect them. And that all makes sense. Once we started getting into the details of how exactly that would work, it got very complicated very quickly, which isn't really a surprise when you get into any new technology. So things that I'm going to cover first, goods and services, classification, use as a trademark, and then a couple additional issues, jurisdiction, enforcement, and trademark licenses. Okay. So trademark law protects marks. That seems straightforward enough, but that's wrong. Trademark law protects marks that are used to identify and distinguish his or her goods from those manufactured or sold by others and to indicate the source of those goods. That's straight from the U.S. trademark statute. So unless you're Coca-Cola or McDonald's or a few other famous mark owners, trademark rights extend to two things. It's not just the mark, it's the mark as it's used with the offering of a particular good or service. And the point of it all is the mark indicates the source of that service. So remember that this is a, trademarks are a valuable intellectual property right. It's also a consumer protection act. This is all about consumers making sure that they can understand what it is that they're purchasing. But I think this concept that it's the mark with specific goods and services, I think it's fairly intuitive. So on the one hand, you can have one company use a mark Delta in connection with air transportation services at the same time you can have another company using Delta in connection with plumbing fixtures. Nobody is confused by this. And why would they? The offering of air transportation services and plumbing fixtures have nothing to do with each other. And the marketplace understands that. So that's where the goods and services really come into play. These are examples of the U.S. trademark registrations for the two Delta marks. And you'll see there it identifies the mark. It then identifies what the claimed goods are. So there you'll see four and air transportation of passengers, mail and express freight and cargo. And then it also identifies a class and we'll get to that in a minute. I'm not sure why this keeps blacking out on me. So you'll see there class 39 and it's too small to read, but that also identifies a class 13, I think it is. So classification, you have the entire world of goods and services. It became very clear pretty early on in national trademark registration systems that this needed to be organized in some way. So 1957, enter the Nice classification system. It's officially called the Nice agreement concerning the international classification of goods and services for the purposes of the registration of marks. People just call it the Nice classification system. It's an international treaty that divides the universe of goods and services into currently 45 classes of goods and services. It has been modified over time. There's a meeting every, I believe it's three years where they work on revisions to the classification system. So new goods and services come into existence. They talk about where to classify it. And occasionally they add new classes to the classification system. Roughly 150 countries, which is basically approaching all of them, four regional trademark offices, so like the EU IP office and WIPO, all use the Nice classification system for their trademark applications and registrations. A key point there on the last one is it's required to participate in the Madrid protocol, which is an international filing system for trademarks. Madrid protocol is a whole separate subject that we won't get into, but it is a kind of a powerful influence. And Canada amended their trademark act in 2019 in part to adopt the Nice classification system, which it had not been using, just so it could join the Madrid protocol. Okay, so for the classes, this is an example of class nine from the WIPO website. You can see it has the full listing of classes, one through 34 goods, 35 through 45 or services. And then it tells you what falls into each classification. Now how it's used varies from country to country. So some countries allow a class heading claim, which means you can file a trademark application for your mark in class nine. And that's all that you have to say. Other countries like the United States require very specific descriptions of the goods and services that you're claiming that you use your trademark with. And it's also used when trademark applications are examined. So some trademark offices, not all will examine an application on relative grounds. So what that means is not only will they evaluate the application just to make sure that everything is in order. But they will also look at their register to see if there's any other confusingly similar trademarks that might conflict with your application. Now where the classification system comes into play there is some countries are only going to look at the class you identified in your application. So if you apply in class nine, they're only going to look in class nine. Other jurisdictions will look at related classes as well. So class nine covers software, for example, class 42 covers hosted software. So they will look in both of those. Okay, moving on, use. Use is a key concept in trademark law. It really doesn't make sense to protect something that's supposed to indicate the source of a good or a service if the owner isn't using it in the marketplace. So this, it's a little small, but all of this here is the US definition of use. And it's key to point out, it isn't simply simply just using it. It's using it as a trademark. So putting a sign over a bushel of apples and saying apple one dollar is not a trademark use of the word apple. What that is is describing to people what it is that's in the bushel. So descriptive uses like that are not trademark uses. It describes what the good is not the source. Putting an apple design on the back of my laptop is a trademark use. It's telling consumers who made this laptop. Now the hard part is that use comes up in various contexts when we're talking about trademarks and every country approaches it in their own way. So it could come up in a registration context. So you apply to register a mark. The United States, for example, requires you to demonstrate to them through evidence that you are using the mark with the goods and services claimed in the application as a trademark. It comes up at renewal time. Some countries require evidence, so you don't have to demonstrate use when you obtain a registration, but you keep that registration at renewal. You have to provide evidence of that use to convince them that you're still actually using the mark. And it comes up in enforcement context. So it either can be a purely defensive one where someone is trying to cancel your trademark rights where they think you're not using it as a trademark and you have to provide evidence and support of that. It can also come up in a counterclaim.  All right. I think this is close to the being done with the trademark basics, and then we'll get into some metaverse stuff. And we'll cover more on these later. So key point that a lot of people forget. Trademark rights are national in scope. If I have a trademark right in Canada, that does not do me any good in Finland. Now there's some gray area around that if you can prove that the user infringer in Finland was aware of your trademark rights in Canada and that's why they started using it. But basically speaking, your trademark rights are national. What that means is it's expensive to register trademarks worldwide. I mean, most companies don't do it worldwide because of that cost, but everyone finds their appropriate comfort zone that gives them the appropriate level of coverage at a reasonable cost. Trademark rights are enforced in national trademark offices and courts. If I want to stop something that's going on in Sweden, I have to hire a Swedish lawyer to oppose that application in Sweden or I have to hire that Swedish lawyer to go to a court in Sweden. However, there's also the secondary enforcement mechanism, which I'd say the last 15 years has become just as important and that's the trademark abuse policies. So for domain names, we have the uniform dispute resolution policy. You register a domain name with most top level domains. You're agreeing to be subject to this arbitration policy where if a brand owner thinks you were infringing their trademark, I can go to WIPO or one of the other arbitrators and file a complaint. Social media platforms all have trademark abuse policies. So if somebody has registered a GitHub repo that incorporates my trademark and it's confusing users, I can go to GitHub and file a complaint and say, hey, here's my trademark registration. This is confusing people and GitHub will take action on that as a service provider. Okay. So let me actually just pause there for a second because we're going to transition now into some metaverse specific stuff. Any questions on what I've talked about so far? Okay. Great. All right. Trademarks and the metaverse is a great opportunity, right? So new ways to market and sell existing goods and services. As we were working on our interview report in our research, we saw an application that was filed by McDonald's and, you know, deciphering what they were claiming in that application. It's clear what they are thinking about is an avatar sitting in a virtual cafe where its user orders a coffee that is delivered in the physical world to them as they're interacting on the metaverse platform. It's like it's not a new good. Anyone can get a coffee from McDonald's, but it's a new way of getting and marketing that good. You can create new virtual counterparts to existing goods and services. I think this is the most obvious one when you're talking about physical goods. So clothing, shoes, cars create virtual counterparts of those and market those metaverse platforms. An early example of this was the Birken handbags and it was actually the first example of litigation over the use of trademark goods in the metaverse. We'll come back to that a bit later. You can create entirely new goods and services on a metaverse platform. I don't insert idea here of whatever you'll need in the metaverse that doesn't exist in the physical world. And also just expands the geographic scope of brand awareness. So you have a very popular brand in one part of the country and even with the internet, it just doesn't have brand awareness in other parts of the world. What you can do on a metaverse platform is attract new potential purchasers of goods and services who could be based anywhere. So challenges. Now we're getting into the fun stuff. So there are many. All right. So we protect trademarks through registration. You do generate some trademark rights just by using a mark more in common law countries like the United States. But for the most part, let's just say the best way to protect a trademark is through registration. Well, what are the goods and services for this thing that you're doing on the metaverse platform? And where do you apply to register the trademark then? Again, we talked about different use requirements from country to country. What does it mean to use a mark on a metaverse platform? And does it align with every country's requirements for that? License arrangements. So there's a lot of uncertainty in how much controlled technology is going to support, especially platform to platform. So when a brand owner licenses its trademark to another, it has to control the quality and the nature of the goods and services that are offered under their mark. We're going to talk about that a bit more, but this is kind of a dual challenge and opportunity. I think from what I hear about the technology being developed for use in connection with the metaverse, there's going to be some opportunities there for technological controls rather than pure contractual and legal controls. That said, that's all future looking and brand owners don't know where that's going to land. And then enforcement, of course. So if I see somebody who's infringing my mark in a virtual world, where do I go? What form do I use? What country do I go to? What's the standard for evidence in that country? Can I even identify the relevant consumer who's going to be confused by this? If the experience on a particular metaverse platform may vary from user to user depending on certain inputs. All right. So we're going to dive into these in a bit more detail. So brand owners likely need new trademark registrations to protect their marks. And you might say, well, wait a second, like especially in the case of physical good, why do I need a registration for a corresponding virtual good? It's like, well, I don't know. You might. Where we are right now is we just don't have guidance on this. To me, it seems intuitive that trademark rights in a physical world good would extend to a corresponding virtual world good. And that the MetaBurken's case was the first test of this. And there the answer was yes. But in that case, I think it was pretty obvious they were near exact replicas of the physical world handbags. But as you move further and further away from exact replicas, where's the line of artistic expression? It's just a different good now. And it doesn't extend to that. Courts have not had the opportunity to give any guidance on that yet. So as brand owners, you really don't know. So brand owners are going to want to register trademarks to cover these new activities that they're doing on MetaBurken's platforms. So that seems simple enough, right? Just draft up some applications. It's never that simple. So first challenge is, all right, so we've got virtual goods. What class is that going to go into? That's probably the largest area of disagreement. And I would say after working on the International Trademark Association report with our core group of authors, and then the other trademark lawyers we spoke with, there's no alignment on this. That said, the EU IPO has come out and said, all right, if it's a virtual good, it's going into class nine since it's digital content, right? You're getting software that is creating the thing that you're seeing. The USPTO said, yeah, that's probably right. We'll go with that unless it's online, non-downloadable. Now, I would say if I'm on a Metaverse platform, pick one of your choice. And particularly if it has an online component to it, how am I going to know if it's downloadable content, if it's streaming content, if it's terminology online, non-downloadable content, and set a different way. If I'm a brand owner and I know my company is working on that, how am I going to know which technological approach they're going to be taking to all of this? Knowing that it's going to take three years for a trademark application to proceed to registration. So everyone's kind of flying blind here. And particularly, you know, one thing about the guidance from the trademark offices, my personal view is this is wrong. Class nine is probably the most bloated international class there is. So it covers software, it covers electronic and computer hardware, it covers lab equipment, eyeglasses, fire extinguishers, life-saving training mannequins. All of this is in class nine. I mean, just software alone is probably too broad, given where we are now from everything that falls under the definition of software. What's an alternative to that? One approach would be, well, you classify it according to its corresponding real-world class. I think that works for some, but not all, of potential offerings of goods and services. Maybe you need entirely new class. The treaty participants have created new classes over time. This might be a time to add another one. So I don't have an answer for you, but I don't agree with the initial guidance that we're getting from the trademark offices. So I expect that to change over time. Okay. So we need new registrations to cover the activities. Let's draft the applications. You know, there's a lot of uncertainty. But you know, one good question is, well, where are you going to apply? Because it doesn't make sense to register a mark in one jurisdiction and all your use is in another jurisdiction. But we've got two layers here, right? We have users existing in a physical world who are subject to national laws, and we have metaverse platforms who cross these borders quite freely. So figuring out where you're going to invest your money to register these trademarks is a challenge. Now, one approach that I think a lot of people may be defaulting to is, well, where's the company who is operating the metaverse platform that I'm going to be using? Where are they based? And I'll apply to register there because most likely, if there's an issue, I'm going to go to that platform operator first. I think that makes a lot of sense. And frankly, I think that's the way that a lot of people are going to think about it. But my understanding is that there's a lot of desire, especially among, you know, participants in this event, of creating interoperability across platforms. And so that may kind of undercut the value of that approach. So maybe it just means you need to file in multiple jurisdictions, depending where all the platform operators are. That could be an approach. But again, nobody, everyone is just guessing now, which is costing money. And I think that's really, you know, where it's relevant. The last point, too, I think is an important one because I've had these discussions with examiners at the Trademark Office. So a principle in trademark law is you may register one trademark in a registration. Okay, so if the technical specifications of a platform, if they differ, if it doesn't support what your logo looks like in the physical world, and you need to create a new one that complies with those technical specifications, am I going to apply to register just how it appears on that Metaverse platform? Maybe, again, that might be the solution there.  But again, I keep coming back to that. You see the multiplying factor here is if you've got five different marks and want to protect it in 10 different countries, and it's $2,000 to $5,000 per mark per month, then you're going to have to register for that. And that's $5,000 to $5,000 per mark per country to get a registration. We're talking really serious dollars. Okay, so you remember before we talked about use, and here is just not enough guidance.  It's just we're early like, and so brand owners are guessing. So when you apply to register a mark, and it's going to be for virtual good in the United States, and you're going to have to show that the mark is in use in commerce in the United States, and they're telling you it has to be labeled as downloadable software in class nine. Well, how am I going to show that? How am I going to prove to the US PTO? What are their standards for acceptance of that declaration of use that says PTO? Here's my mark being used with the goods I claimed in my application. We don't have that guidance yet. And I can tell you right now, as somebody who represents open source projects, the PTO struggles with anything that isn't a box you take off of a shelf and go to a cash register and pay for it. So marks for open source projects where we have to find a download button somewhere, because that is the only thing that the US PTO examiners understand. You can imagine trying to show them the purchase point for a virtual good on a metaverse platform, how that's going to work. Not well. But again, it varies country to country. We talked about this earlier. How do you prove use in China for the for these same virtual goods to defend against the non-use cancellation action? In China, they use the niche classification system, but then they have their own sub classification system under that. So you basically check boxes of standard descriptions which don't really align necessarily with the good. So you check boxes that are anywhere near what exactly it is that you're offering. But then somebody could attempt to cancel your registration saying, well, you're not using it with that. So how do I prove in a court in China that I am in fact using my mark in connection with these virtual goods in China? And the Chinese courts want to see China specific evidence. And it comes up, as I said, in renewal. So I have to renew my registration in the Philippines. They again want to see evidence of use in the Philippines of a virtual good. How am I going to show that? I don't have answers for you. But I do want to flag these problems because I think these are problems that we are going to need to solve. Sure. Could you just grab a mic so the virtual people can hear the question? Oh, that's a great question. So the answer is probably it depends. But for the most part, I would lean towards yes, because trademark law doesn't care who creates it. It cares who uses it. And so how if AI platform is creating a logo, and then a legal entity, a person, a partnership, a corporation is using it in connection with the offering of a good or a service. That's a trademark. And they're the ones who are using it. So they own those trademark rights. So I would say in that case, yeah, I mean, I think it would. Now, with logos, if it's creating a logo, you still have copyright issues. And copyright is where the real question is. But in the case of, well, can I own the trademark? It's actually probably the downside of AI developed content doesn't hurt as much in this case, right? Because who is going to, who's going to be complaining about it? Because I don't think people will be interested in the copyright rights in the logo as much as they would in the trademark rights. But yeah, very related topic. There's a lot going on in the AI space as well. Okay, trademark licenses. This one is it's, it's going to be messy in the sense that it's a lot of work. And a lot of adverse parties are going to have to talk to each other. So license or licensee. So standard trademark license, you identify certain things, what marks are licensed to the licensee, what goods and services are licensed to the licensee, which jurisdictions, sometimes it's worldwide, sometimes it's regional, sometimes it's state to state or province to province. So that's all set out set forth in the registration. All current trademark agreement, trademark license agreements, unless they're just really broad and it's basically everything everywhere. They're not going to cover use in the metaverse. And, or if, if perhaps the license agreement does, you still need the license or and licensee to agree that yes, it does before the license or goes out and re licenses the same mark in connection with virtual goods. And the licensee thought they already had the right to that. So, you know, the challenge is you're going to have to define all this. So what's the mark, you know, we talked about that it may actually be different platform to platform. What are the goods and services, you know, you're going to have to define that. But I think one interesting part here is, you know, trademark owners must control the quality of the goods and services with which their mark is used. So that's not trademark owners should control. It's a good idea. It's must. If a trademark owner doesn't control the quality of the goods and services with which their mark is used and how their marks are displayed, it invalidates the trademark. It's called a naked license. So remember, a trademark is that something that signifies to the relevant consumer the unique source of a good or a service.  It's not a trademark anymore. That invalidates the trademark rights. Now, I mentioned earlier, you know, one upside is it's like, well, wait a second. I can supply the digital files that is my mark. I can put blockchain technology on this to make sure that it's only displayed where I want it to be displayed. I can do geographic restrictions where it might be a license worldwide, but it's only displayed in certain markets for certain reasons. That is if the tools are there and ideally they're at least similar tools cross platforms. Those tools will also be helpful slash required for regulated industries. So pharmaceuticals, for example, it's really hard to get a trademark for a pharmaceutical that is available where it has the same name worldwide. There's often jurisdiction specific names for drugs. So if you're marketing them on a metaverse platform, obviously you're not using them again. I don't know, maybe you are. You're going to have to restrict markets where you don't have those trademark rights. In fact, you may be prohibited from using your mark in a specific jurisdiction. All right, so covering trademark enforcement, everything that we talked about so far is important because the first thing that comes up in any trademark dispute, if I'm receiving a complaint or a cease and desist letter, first thing I'm doing is, well, who sent it to me and do they have trademark rights? Because if they don't have trademark rights, this discussion is over. So everything we talked about about having enforceable trademark rights is going to be the first question that any defendant's going to ask and is going to be important to this analysis. But then there's the question of evidence. So I see somebody on a metaverse platform using a mark a certain way. I think it infringes my trademark rights. Well, that's great that you think that. How are you going to prove it and where are you going to prove it? What is the data that's available that tells you where the mark was displayed in the real world? Because again, if I'm suing somebody in a Canadian court, we can only be talking about Canadian use. How am I going to identify what users are seeing it? So if a platform has the ability to change who sees or experiences a trademark on a specific platform, how am I going to show that the relevant consumer is likely to be confused if I can't even show who the relevant consumer is in that particular place and if they did see it? And also just from an evidence gathering, how am I going to replicate the experience of, you know, I'm not going to have the same, my avatar won't have the same metadata that the relevant consumer will necessarily. So as a lawyer, how am I going to gather that evidence if I can't replicate the experience that they're having? All very complicated questions. And then, you know, we've talked about this. All right, so you've got evidence. You know you have enforceable rights. I'm going to sue them. Well, where? Where are you going to sue them? And are you going to go to a court or are you going to go to a Metaverse platform operator? You know, are they going to have their own trademark dispute mechanisms in place? My guess is probably likely. You know, same as social media platforms. But what if the infringement is on multiple platforms? Well, then I have to go to all of them. That may be where we end up. But what if an international organization is established, you know, similar to ICAN, to create enforced uniform rules? You know, it doesn't pass the experience with, you know, the worldwide web and other things. I think saying that, oh, well, the, you know, private companies are they're going to decide the rules for these, you know, valuable intellectual property rights, and we'll just roll with that. And there's going to be multiple ones. My guess is that's probably not the end point. So I think some type of regulation is coming. I don't know what exactly it looks like, but something to keep in mind, you know, as you're working in this space. Okay, takeaways. You know, great opportunity, absolutely, but significant costs to protect trademarks in this, in this area.  I think there needs to be a lot more communication among those three groups, you know, on this specific topic.  What opportunities do they see? Even if it's not possible, what are they thinking about? And what are the product and dev teams talking about? What do they actually see, you know, in their pipeline for the next year, the next five years, the next 10 years? Marketing folks, can legal take steps now to protect these future ideas? It's going to take me two to three to five years to get you a trademark registration to protect whatever it is you're thinking about. Can we get started on that now? Can the product team implement the ideas that marketing is thinking about? Maybe, maybe not, but it's early, like we can help, you know, kind of shape requirements. You know, developers help the legal and marketing team understand the roadmap, even if it's purely conceptual. I think every conversation is going to lead to more and more good ideas. I think another thing, you know, we've mentioned it a couple of times, is the interoperability and cross-platform standards and communication protocols. I think that's going to be big, and I think that's what's really attractive here, is if it's, if not seamless, at least, you know, convenient, because I think that generates the real business opportunity. And it also helps, you know, narrow down how many different things we need to think about to protect the brands, if we know that it can move platform to platform. And the other thing I would say is, I think, you know, let the creativity run wild, you know, when we're talking about what the metaverse means and what it could be and what it will be. But I think we're not going to get rid of the real world, right? There are national borders and national laws that have to be followed. That's not going away. So we have to figure out how they can work with each other. And I think that's all that I had. That is. So one, thank you. And two, questions, comments, feedback? I'd love to hear it. Sure. You can just grab the mic. Yeah, I have another question. So when we talk about the metaverse, that's one metaverse for the global world. And if I created some virtual goods in the metaverse, and where shall I register my trademark? I mean, which country? Right. Yeah. So I mean, I think that's the situation where, you know, particularly where you don't previously have a corresponding physical world good. If this is either just a brand new type of good or service, or you exist purely as a company that offers goods and services in the metaverse. So, you know, where do you register?  So where is your company physically located? You know, I start there as an option. Whoever operates the metaverse platform, I would say that's a perhaps even more important jurisdiction. Because if you need to enforce your rights and you're going to go to that platform operator, they won't necessarily be required, but they're going to be more comfortable with a registration from their own jurisdiction because they understand it. Beyond that, I mean, it's, you're kind of guessing. So, you know, where are your users? Where are your consumers? And you kind of, you know, it's the same analysis you would for any other trademark for any other good. It's just that on a, you know, in this new virtual world, mapping that to these national boundaries is not straightforward at all.  It kind of isn't, though. I don't really know how best to articulate it. Other than one thing is that I think the internet did consider a number of these questions. And that's why you do have things like the UDRP. And there are international conventions for how brands are used on the internet. So now the thing is the cost multiplier, right?  Well, that's cost prohibitive. There's no way you're doing that. So you're not doing 200 countries, you're not doing 100 countries, probably not doing 50, probably not 20. So do you have a top 10 list of countries? Even that, you know, you're approaching six digits in cost. So, you know, maybe you have to cut that down to two or three, especially if there's multiple marks. It's finding that right balance, which I think is going to vary from applicant to applicant.  And what does that money, where does it go? What does it fund? And are there opportunities for open source or nonprofit projects to pay less in this realm? So the last part is probably the easiest to answer, which is to say from the government perspective, no, they don't differentiate nonprofits or individual applicants. You know, on the patent side, they do have small entities where the fee structure is lower. Trademarks is it's based on how many classes of goods or services are in your application for your mark. So if it's one mark in two classes, you pay $650 to the US government for that. You then require a lawyer like me to actually file the application. Some jurisdictions, the US, although I think they're moving away from this, do allow prosa applications where a non-lawyer files it on their own behalf. But in most jurisdictions, you need somebody licensed in that country to file the application. Now that is one, theoretically, upside of the Madrid protocol that I mentioned earlier, that international filing system. There often is an initial cost savings there because you're cutting out the local counsel. So you file locally, you check a box for other countries. The applications are sent there through WIPO. But if the National Trademark Office who receives it raises any issues, you then need local counsel to respond to the issues. So my experience, particularly in software, is Madrid protocol ends up not being the savings that is advertised to be. Other, if I'm selling jewelry, the class in the description is just jewelry. And so it's not complex. And those applications go through quite nicely. And you do experience that cost savings. So what does the money go to? It's running the National Trademark Office. Some of those fees go to organizations like WIPO. And then it's the legal fees associated with preparing and filing the application and tracking it, all that stuff on an international basis. We're cheaper than patents, though. I will say that. So on an IP rate to IP rate, trademarks to our bargain. So I got a question. Yeah, I mean, copyright, it's, yeah, it's actually, I don't even remember what the costs are. It's really cheap to apply to register a copyright.  So it's a frequent exercise with copyright registrations. So I got a question for you. Yep. And it's more of an opinion piece, but I think you'll enjoy it. So imagine, and this is a realistic thing that can happen. Say I've got a character that I built with a red fedora, pink jumpsuit, fluffy bunny shoes, and, you know, a white, it's a very unique, strange look. Yep. But I've managed to amass a half a billion people who watch and come to my world. How do you propose that person tries to protect the likeness, even though none of the assets are unique, but the combination of the assets are what's unique. Yeah, exactly. So there I would say, and again, this is important to differentiate the different types of IP. The copyright claims there, I think are harder. To me, that's a pretty straightforward, valid trademark. The trade dress of kind of if the look is consistent, and it is functioning as a source identifier. So if I see your character walking around, it's like, there's royal. All right. Like, let's hear a speech. It's functioning as a source identifier. So it's a trademark and protectable.  Trademark law does make those higher standards. So it's not inherently distinctive where it is automatically protectable. You're going to have to prove to the trademark office that it has acquired distinctiveness and provide evidence of that acquired distinctiveness. So your 500,000 followers is probably exhibit a and, you know, showing how that's connected with whatever services you're claiming. And then the scope of protection is going to be pretty narrow, right? So it's, you're not going to, you wouldn't be covering the color pink for your shoes. It's the specific look. The question is that what threshold? I'm building my community and I get first 100,000 and somebody decides I'm going to dress like that. Yep.  Right. And so the conceptual issue you're talking about is something that trademark law has dealt with forever, right? So how many units sold is enough to show use in commerce? Well, if I'm building an aircraft carrier, one is enough, right? But if it's a matchbox car, well, then I'm going to need 20,000 units sold. And, you know, unfortunately, it's one of those, well, I'll tell you when I see it, examples, it's, you know, whatever that particular court feels is the right number. But yes, there, you're not going to be able to pinpoint a threshold. There's going to be gray area. So I'd say get far past that gray area, and then you'll be confident. But good question. All right. Well, thank you, everyone.