When one of the most trailblazing industries meets one of the most conservative, you get a pretty interesting dynamic. That’s what you get with the legal side of Web3, the blockchain, and NFTs. How do lawyers working around the edges of the law deal with the new legal conundrums posed by all these emerging technologies and their attendant issues on things like ownership, governance, and intellectual property? Among other firms in the world DLA Piper is on the cutting-edge when it comes to this. Joining this discussion are two of its lawyers that are most involved in the emerging practice area of blockchain law – Tom Ara and Michael Fluhr. Tune in and learn what it’s like for them in the practice, what big issues they’re facing right now, and how they navigate the conservative legal landscape to find a place for this new, rapidly growing industry.
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Tom Ara And Michael Fluhr Of DLA Piper — The Platform Where Success Is Solved
This is Tom Ara and Michael Fluhr of DLA Piper, the global law firm that makes Web3 business better.
We are here on The Edge of NFT. Legally speaking, that is the best show on earth. This is not a legal advice. Keep tuning in.
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Stay tuned for this episode and learn how DLA Piper is contributing significantly to the growth and refinement of Web3 from a legal perspective.
You will learn about some interesting vocab terms like licorice pizza and disintermediation.
You will also finally catch up about Entertainment Studio Toonstar’s new NFT-backed TV series called Space Junk. Stay tuned.
Outer Edge LA, our awesome community-centric gathering, returned to Los Angeles in March 2023. If you think you missed out, you can catch up on all of the interactive experiences, discussions, presentations, and more by having over to Watch.OuterEdge.live. Sign up with your email address to get the full recap of over 60 captivating conversations and performances. Watch out, Netflix, because I’m going to Outer Edge and chill.
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This episode features Tom Ara and Michael Fluhr of DLA Piper, a global law firm with legal professionals in over 40 countries ready to help clients with their needs around the world. First up, let's get a little background on Tom. He's a Partner at DLA Piper's Century City office. He's a global and US co-chair of the firm's media, sports, and entertainment practice. Tom is all about making deals and solving problems within the entertainment and media industry and Web3.
Variety Magazine recognized him as a top business leader shaping the global media industry. He has led a multitude of cutting-edge transactions in media and entertainment globally. He has appeared and contributed opinions in media across TV, podcasts, and text publications. Check the Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg, and Financial Times, to name a few, for his name.
Within Web3, he has closed investment deals involving VR and Bitcoin and played a role in the first TikTok NFT and OpenSea record-breaking drops involving the likes of Anthony Hopkins and Scotty Pippen. He's a board member of The Blackhouse Foundation, a trustee of the US Asia Institute, and an advisor or board member of various other entertainment industry organizations.
Let's get some background on Michael Fluhr. He counsels and defends companies in a wide variety of complex commercial disputes. Michael focuses his practice on the financial sector, including the blockchain and digital asset space where he advises and defends exchanges issuers, NFT platforms and creators, and other related companies.
Michael is an author and editor of the book Cryptocurrency and Digital Asset Regulation: A Practical Guide for Multinational Council and Transactional Lawyers. It is a coffee table book for many, I'm sure. It was published in 2022 by the American Bar Association. Sought-after for his deep understanding of this space and technology, Michael has been quoted in media and regularly publishes and speaks about issues germane to blockchain and digital assets. This includes securities analysis, intellectual property rights, and regulation of the NFT space.
Finally, a little bit more about DLA Piper. It just about handles any legal needs for clients wherever they do business on Earth. Global offices sit in the Americas, Europe, the Middle East, Africa, Asia Pacific, and more as well. Example areas of mastery include arbitration, banking, competition and trade, corporate crime, and corporate finance. Additionally, they are strong in legal matters pertaining to employment, energy, hospitality, insurance, intellectual property, litigation, and M&A. The list goes on. Welcome to the show. Michael and Tom, it is great to have you here.
Thanks for having us.
The legal system is well beyond me. I've studied a lot of complex things. I admire anybody who goes deep into law. It is great knowledge to have. You are direly needed in this particular industry with so many changes and things going on. DLA Piper is very impressive. You're all about helping businesses grow and doing it well by applying late-breaking insights in legal and commercial practices. Can either of you guys give me any background on DLA Piper, in general, and how the organization came to be? A good way to approach this question is a little bit of background that you know and also how you got there, maybe from each of you.
The firm was here long before I got here. Thank you for the wonderful introductions, including the overview of the firm's breadth and expertise. In general, what we have been able to accomplish here and during the time we've been here is to place the firm on the map when it comes to Web3. It has been an incredibly important practice area for our firm and a growth area for our firm. Lawyers like Mike and others who we’ll talk about or others that we have come across have played an incredible role in placing the firm firmly at the top of the list of Web3 firms.
The firm has tremendous roots in Silicon Valley and technology both in the Bay Area and in the tech corridor down in Southern California. It's an international firm that's created as a result of a number of combinations over the years that resulted in what is one of the top 2 or 3 firms in the world in terms of size. I will also add that what I love about what we've built here is it's a collection of lawyers and professionals who have tremendous connectivity and overlap in ways that make working together synergistic. Ultimately, we're a service business delivering top-quality service comprehensively to our clients.
Michael, do you have anything to add about your experience or how you got to DLA?
I'll give you a little background on myself and then how that dovetails into DLA’s blockchain practice. I came to DLA a few years ago. Before that, I was helping to build the blockchain practice at a different firm. We were doing a lot of work for a very large cryptocurrency exchange that centered around litigation. I was also starting to build a larger practice that included regulatory counseling, commercial counseling, and IP licensing with a variety of clients in the blockchain space.
There weren't a ton of attorneys who had a deep understanding of the industry, the space, and the technology, which in this particular industry is very important for a lawyer to have. We were seeing increasing demand. At the time, I was looking for a place that had a growing blockchain practice and a large platform, particularly in the tech industry in the Bay Area and California where we continued to build that practice, so I came to DLA a few years ago.
At the time, like a lot of firms or at least a lot of good firms in the blockchain space, there was a rapidly growing blockchain practice with attorneys from a variety of different areas. You had corporate attorneys who are helping early-stage blockchain companies figure out how to raise capital with maybe both equity and tokens. You had some of the media attorneys, including Tom and his group, that were starting to do projects in the NFT space with their media clients. You had regulatory attorneys and litigators who are starting to counsel companies on how to comply with all sorts of various regulations and participate in litigation.
Over the past few years, with the help of some amazing colleagues at DLA who I'll name in a second, we've built a core team of blockchain practitioners who are handling all sorts of matters from tax advice to DeFi protocols to capital raising for early stage companies to NFT licensing and advice to DAO work. I do want to give a special shout-out to some of the leaders and pioneers in that group including Margo Tank, Deborah Meshulam, the venerable Mark Radcliffe, James Williams, and Tom.
It's a fascinating space to be in and to grow. This isn't your basic real estate transactional law or something. It's not like John and Jane buying a house. This is cutting-edge stuff where you have to be at the forefront and you have to be willing to almost be co-creating an industry as it builds. It's very exciting for you guys to be in there.
In all of the things you listed, there are a couple of areas that have the most excitement and creativity around but also a lot of messiness that probably creates a lot of interesting strategies and conversations from the legal side. Those being NFTs and DAOs.
The messier it is, the more they get paid, so I don't think they're worried about that.
I'd love to hear about how you guys help people think strategically around NFTs and DAOs, in particular, where you see a lot of creativity and people experimenting all the time. In DAOs, it's exceptionally messy and still nascent. There are still questions around, “Will this ever be anything other than illegal?”
To prelude to that, Web3, NFTs, and blockchain, it is the intersection of some very important legal areas. That is where some of our colleagues and the team here are critical to it. It's regulatory in many ways as you guys are probably very well aware of as well as your audience. It is unsettled law, but prosecution around a lot of what's happening in Web3 and blockchain by various regulatory authorities. Intellectual property is incredibly important to most of what this space involves like venture and venture capital. That's the funding source for a lot of what happens here in pure technology. It's this culmination of expertise in so many different areas that come together to be able to provide this package of services to clients.
Some of the areas you mentioned, Zach, DAO is a very rapidly developing area as we speak. Laws are being introduced. Bills are being introduced in states including California where Mike and I try to bring some certainty to the DAO world which has a lot of uncertainty from both the legal perspective and also regulatory and other aspects.
For us, one of the things we try and do is share knowledge. We have an internal email group where we are constantly not only saying, “I saw this article,” but then, I'll see something and I'll post it. The next thing I know, Mike has dissected it with incredible detail of what it means and the implications, and then someone else will chime in. We'll do that every day. It's a lot of fun to see that because we know we're on the bleeding edge. We're doing work in an area that 10, 20, or 30 years from now we're building the foundation for with our clients as legal advisors.
Do you have anything else to say on that topic about the challenges and issues you guys are hashing out, Michael?
To go back to the question in terms of dealing with what you call messiness, I'd probably pick a friendlier word. It is interesting because as is true for a lot of technologies, you have technological entrepreneurs who are pioneering and leading the way. Lawyers then have to figure out what they are doing and how are existing laws going to apply to that.
NFTs and DAOs both present a good example. For NFTs, what you saw in the early days of NFTs is creators saying, “I'm going to sell an NFT,” which is just a digital certificate in a lot of ways. I am going to associate it with this piece of media that's going to maybe live off-chain somewhere. I'm going to sell it to you as a package and say, “You're going to have an NFT of this piece of artwork.” People said, “That’s cool. I've got an NFT of this picture. I've got an NF T of this sound recording.”
From a legal perspective, the question becomes, what does that mean? What does it mean to have an NFT of a picture? Lawyers get involved. We say, “The thing to own when it comes to a picture is intellectual property. Maybe there's an intellectual property right here that the creator can own and then either transfer or license to the holder.” You saw the emergence of these assignment and licensing regimes of intellectual property.
The DAOs presented another example where you had people say, “We're going to farm a DAO. We're going to create a smart contract and distribute a governance token which is going to have some governance rights maybe over this underlying DeFi protocol,” to use an example. The question then arises, what kind of organization has been formed, if any?
Lawyers have to come in and start trying to figure out what that means for a group of people to get together and say, “We're each going to exercise some limited governance right over this DeFi protocol. Does that mean that we can incorporate it? Does that mean we can call ourselves an unincorporated association, like a partnership or even a nonprofit association? Can we say we're not any organization at all and we're just independently out doing our thing?” These are the things that lawyers then come in once the entrepreneurs have built products. They’ll say, “How do we fit these products in and work with existing laws to secure favorable and workable legal treatment so that these entrepreneurs can go out and do their thing and make the next products for tomorrow?”
I can't help but be reminded of the story which you guys may or may not be familiar with. It may be too pop culture-y for you. I don't know. There's the monkey selfie where the monkey got the copyright because he's the one that pressed the button. He had somebody’s camera. It's funny that we're doing monkey pictures now with NFTs. It's a similar dance around, “Who owns this monkey picture?” What does that mean?
I would like to point out these are not monkeys. They're apes.
People like to say that. I appreciate the second description of all that from you. Let's jump over to the metaverse here. That has its own set of legal complications. I wonder if one or both of you could break down some of the things that you deal with in the metaverse and how DLA might be getting their hands dirty helping out with that.
The first thing I'd begin by saying to dispel notions that folks may have about the laws that apply when you're foraying into the metaverse is there are laws. Those laws are the same ones that we live with every day in the real world. It's not a different planet. It's not a different universe. It is a virtual world that exists on this planet. Depending on the jurisdiction you live in, those are the laws that are going to likely apply to you for whatever conduct or actions that you take there.
One of the most important things that I deal with because my background is media and intellectual property are intellectual property rights in the metaverse, which start to get interesting and at times, murky. What happens in the metaverse often, which is a great thing about the metaverse, is a piece of intellectual property gets introduced and then people build on it. It develops into something that we call a derivative. There are questions about who owns that derivative work or that new creation. Is it whoever created it in that space? Is it the platform that runs that metaverse or is it the original creator?
There are a lot of things, depending on the terms of use for that platform when you enter and use it. It may depend on copyright laws in a particular jurisdiction. There is a lot at issue there. For the average person who maybe comes in and introduces a piece of intellectual property in the metaverse, they may not care that much about aspects around ownership or copyright. Let's say you're a major brand, a major Hollywood studio, or a creator. You want to be very careful when you're going into that world about what can be done with your intellectual property and who can gain any part of the ownership of it.
These are the types of things we're talking to clients about quite regularly, and how to manage those risks. Some are more risk-averse than others. The important thing for us in our role is to help them navigate the risks there and mitigation options. Ultimately, clients have to make their own decisions about what to do there.
At the risk of diving ahead first down in one of the deepest rabbit holes, I can't resist asking you guys for some perspective on one of my favorite topics in the world of Web3 and crypto. That is the concept of ownership. We use that word a lot. It has a more understood and established meaning in everyday outside of the metaverse and outside of the Web3 world. In certain jurisdictions, it also has a very specific definition.
Previously, it has required identity, whether it's a natural person or a business entity owning something. In Web3, it might be more accurate to say, “I'll admit that I happen to control the keys to a wallet.” At what point does that cross over into maybe more established versions of ownership? It seems to me like branching from that comes a lot of interesting conversations around intellectual property in particular.
If you were to ask even the average attorney, “What does it mean to own something?” I have this phone that I got. This is going to be one of the questions later, but what does it mean for me to own this phone? At the end of the day, what it means is the law is going to recognize my right to do certain things with it. It feels a bit circular, but is that what ownership means? It's that the law is going to allow me to control it and not let anyone else control it. I have certain rights to do what I want with it. We end up asking ourselves these same questions when it comes to digital assets like cryptocurrency.
You're exactly right. If I control the keys and that is the way to think about it to let's say a given address on Ethereum and metaphorically stored in that address are certain tokens, do I own those tokens? I would argue the answer is an unquestionable yes. We have a lot of court cases that talk about certain rights to cryptocurrency. They've been treated as property under tax laws and under laws of civil liability for purposes of theft. It seems clear to me that you can certainly own these digital assets on a blockchain as much as you can own other types of assets.
Around the boundaries, there are all sorts of unanswered questions including maybe the one you were asking before. Who can own these sorts of things? Can a protocol own tokens? There are no clear answers but you might ask, “How different is that from saying a vending machine owns the snacks inside?” Normally somebody controls the vending machine.
What if I share the key with a spouse, a friend, or accidentally with a hacker? It's almost like by copying a key at Home Depot for $0.29, I give 50% equity in my contents or my safe.
We could go down the rabbit hole with all sorts of hypotheticals, but these are the sorts of questions that we're called upon to answer in a variety of circumstances. I've dealt with these exact same questions particularly in litigation because that's where it tends to come up. What you end up having to do is say, “There are no laws on the books on cryptocurrency,” or at least there weren't years ago. You have to look at, “What do laws and court cases on the books say about my right to own property like a vending machine or my right to own money? What does ownership mean?” Try to apply those same concepts to these new technologies.
It's a fun topic. We could probably talk about it all day and still have plenty to say. Somewhere more on the NFT side of things and how we've been able to see interesting entertainment properties take advantage. Specifically, sports has been leading the way a lot in the last few years. I know you at DLA Piper have worked with pro basketball, football, and soccer teams in a lot of different areas. It could be anything from naming rights to fan tokens or NFTs. Can you tell us more about what process you go through working with these giant entertainment media and IP properties?
Sports is its own unique area particularly in the United States because major sports like football, soccer, basketball, hockey, and baseball are heavily regulated by leagues. What the individual teams can do with their intellectual property and team names requires careful analysis and potentially, approval at the league level. We have a tremendous sports team at the firm that works with us carefully anytime we're going down the path of working with a team on an NFT initiative.
When you're dealing with players’ likeness, that's a whole different ball wax with the players' associations and their rights. It can be complicated. That's where we come in. To your earlier point, Zach, about messes or complicated situations, we love that type of puzzle and trying to solve it. In that respect, there are lots of questions that arise around how much control we have over our intellectual property once it gets out there, and what is the scope of the license you're giving to a purchaser of these NFTs. Is it on an open marketplace that these NFTs can be traded? You think about Top Shot and some of the closed marketplace models. It is an environment where the license is to view the exhibit, and that's about it on trade.
There are different appetites by different parties on how to approach those. Probably the most important driver for doing NFTs in this space is fan engagement and brand affinity. There also is a component of using it as a tool for memorabilia, whether it's a ticket to a game or a card for a player. That's an important aspect of the use in that area as well. For ownership purposes, going back to the discussion around ownership, it is being able to prove historically that you have this certificate by way of a token of having purchased the first ever fill-in-the-blank NFT around a player or team.
Outside of sports, we've seen a lot of engagement at least on the film and television talent side around wanting to engage with fans. For some, it has become a significant revenue source being able to publish these NFTs and being able to have a potential down-the-stream royalty to the extent that there are royalties attached. In many cases, there are. Sometimes, the perspective is it opens up a new avenue of revenue that didn't exist when somebody goes and buys a copy of a film or a copy of a magazine, and then trades it and sells it to the next person. The studio wouldn't get their royalty. They wouldn't get ongoing participation. NFTs and blockchain give that opportunity that many are interested in grabbing.
Out of that, I've done a lot of NFT deals over the past few years with sports teams, sports leagues, film studios, and companies. One thing that I've found consistently is that for these organizations, their brand is everything for them. It is incredibly valued. Talk about the NFL and the Shield or the NBA and their IP. This is a huge piece of value for them. They're rightfully quite protective and circumspect about how they license it in the terms under which they do so. If you look at a typical licensing agreement in this space, they're long. They can be complex. They entail a lot of protection for the IP licenser.
The sports game on TV is the only thing you ever get a disclaimer at the beginning without express written permission, etc.
There you go. One of the challenging but I've thought fun aspects of pioneering what these deals can look like is being able to discuss, “Here is the technology. Here's what's going to be done with it. These things that might typically be done with your brand, we've got to modify that a little bit. We've got to tweak it. We've got to figure out different ways to protect it. We've got to realize where some of the limitations might be with respect to this new technology but also where some of the advantages might be with this new technology.” That has been one of the challenging parts of pioneering what these deals can look like.
Those are cool stuff. Does the DLA Piper sports team have a sports team? Do they play in a baseball league?
I don't think we do.
I feel like that's so appropriate.
Do you have your logo on a little league team somewhere?
We need to sponsor a little league team and create little NFTs for all their players.
We did drop an NFT at another NFT conference. Didn't we, Mike? Didn’t we do an NFT drop in New York?
We indeed did.
We’ve leaned into that area. We worked with a token that we helped launch that is an independent company called TOKO a few years back. I've been incredibly impressed by how forward-leaning we've been into this space relative to some of our peer firms, but more importantly, an industry that is very conservative by its nature, and concerned about legal risk and general adventuring into areas they're not familiar with. We've been careful and deliberate but certainly ahead of the curve.
To put in an extra plug for those roots, something I forget about sometimes is it was in the fall or winter of 2020 when one of our old partners who had helped build TOKO, which is our tokenization engine, minted one or more NFTs associated with art. They were then purchased by a few of our partners in the Hong Kong office. This was before the NFT craze.
I've been working in blockchain for quite a while. There was a time when people would talk about NFTs, and I had done some stuff with NFTs, but nobody knew what they were or were thinking about it until late 2020 and early 2021. That was when all of a sudden, it became very interesting to a lot of people. I remember even before that, we issued this NFT art project.
It was incredibly ahead of the curve. I know it was only a few years ago, but if you think about what has happened in the NFT world in three years, it's tremendous. My first introduction to digital assets or currency was in the mid-2000s with Second Life. I remember getting my first Linden coins if you know what those are. I was saying, “What the heck is this? What am I going to do with it?” You could buy weird tchotchkes or whatever on Second Life. There were people who were racking up their Linden coins. I abandoned it in 2006 or 2007. I stopped using it. Years later, when I started hearing about Second Life again, I went back to it and realized I still had my Linden coins. They’re still worth nothing though, so I didn’t know what to do with them.
One of our fans who were active in our Discord also was a huge Second Life user. It’s interesting how little we’ve seen of them within the Web3 NFT space.
There’s also the metaverse, right?
Yeah. It's fascinating.
It was the original metaverse. It was over Dial-up, which was terrible because there was no high-speed internet in 2004.
It's one of the cases where they've been around for so long that they had their own trajectory in altering it and whether it’d be on the game plan. It’s fascinating stuff. We’ll wrap up here with a couple of questions. One that we always like to ask if there's anything you can share is what's on the horizon for DLA Piper. Are there any partnerships, collabs, exciting features, and stuff that you can share or will you keep it close?
Mike, collabs, what do you have?
The collab question is probably aimed at companies that are a little more fun than law firms. They are likely to collab with another law firm. I don’t know.
The one collab for us, whether you call it a collab or what's on the horizon, is on the metaverse side, the firm is leaning in a big way to build internally and eventually externally a metaverse for employees and professionals. It is for them to be able to communicate, work together, and eventually invite clients to come to events and participate. I'm sure that will lead to some collabs of various sorts. We're going to need a coffee shop in our metaverse. We'll have to figure out who we collaborate with for that or whatever.
We have to put in a plug for Mark Radcliffe. We had a collab with another law firm, Latham Watkins and a16z on these NFT Don't be Evil licenses. It is a standard set of licenses that NFT creators can use to license IP. In law firm land, the collab only goes so far. I'm opposite some of those attorneys on a piece of litigation.
That's how the cookie crumbles. Are there any other projects that maybe you're not involved with but you've been admiring from afar and you think people might be interested to pay attention to? Are there ongoing legal conundrums that you think people might be interested in following?
One of the things that we've been incredibly active in is the DAO space. Unfortunately, our colleague, James, couldn't join us. James worked with one of his clients, L'Oreal on the gorgeous drop on the GORJS DAO, which is launching on OpenSea. For us, DAOs present a very interesting kind of legal puzzle to solve. We've been working closely with major clients and brands on solving it. We are also paying close attention internally to both understand the developments and also, to some extent, where we have influence being able to advocate with lawmakers and regulators to help them understand what it is, the purpose of it, and how the laws should develop.
We want the laws and the regulations to develop in a responsible way ultimately. It's to our benefit across the board in Web3 that the way things develop is such that we can work where innovation is permitted and encouraged while at the same time, the interests of everyone who has an interest are protected properly.
This is maybe why I'm a lawyer and not an entrepreneur. The legal developments are what piques my interest. Tom hit on the one that I was going to say as well, which is the treatment of DAOs as organizations are 1 of the 2 or 3 hottest, most important and interesting legal topics in the blockchain space. I’d be happy to go on and on about that. The other is the application, particularly of securities laws. There are other types of regulation too, but the application of securities laws to various blockchain-based assets is one of the top 2 or 3 most important and interesting legal topics to me in the blockchain space.
Maybe one day, a DAO will be categorized as a person legally just like a corporation. Let’s see if that happens.
No comment.
You should check out the bill that was introduced in California for the treatment of DAOs as unincorporated dissociation. Some other states have also either passed or introduced bills. It's developing law.
That concludes our normal question segment. We’d like to move on to the next, which is our Quick Hitters. It is a fun quick way to get to know you guys a little bit better. These are ten questions. We're looking for a short, singular, or a few-word response. Feel free to expand a little bit if you get the urge. Are you guys ready for this? We'll hit you both and we'll pick who answers first on each one. We'll try to alternate. Are you guys ready?
Sure. Let's go.
Michael, do I have your consent?
I may have some questions that I particularly felt like answering in others where I'm like, “I don't have a good answer here.”
That's fine. That sounds good. Let's hit Tom first. What is the first thing you ever remember purchasing in your life?
It was a vinyl record, for anyone who knows what that is. It was the Beach Boys' record. It was in the early ‘80s. That was the beginning of my obsession with what they referred to in some circles as licorice pizza vinyl. I own a collection of vinyl that I don't know what to do with because it takes up a lot of space.
We're still in the area that may be holding onto it makes sense because it's coming back.
In 2022, vinyl outsold CDs for the first time in I don't know how many years. The death of CDs has occurred.
I heard somebody telling me, a musician, that it was going to cost them $50 per record to print the record. It's crazy.
It was very expensive.
Michael, do you care to share the first purchase that you remember?
The first purchase I can remember is probably a bouncy ball. I bought it at the school store in elementary school. Something maybe a little more interesting is I remember purchasing a Nas tape. I have a distinct memory of purchasing Nas’ first album on tape. He has launched NFT, so maybe we've come full circle.
That sounds good. Bouncy balls are a great go-to. I love them to this day. We’ll start with Mike on the next one. What's the first thing you have to remember selling in your life?
I have a distinct memory of having my mother purchase me a giant tub of Jolly Ranchers at a Costco-type store, and then selling them at school for which I got in trouble. At that time, I was a little more entrepreneurial than I am now.
We got to find a way to create some type of school marketplace for those kids who generally get punished or are trying to sell things at school. There is something to be learned there. Tom, how about you? What was the first thing you ever remember selling in your life?
It was the car that was a hand-me-down from my older brother. I got this old beat-up Volkswagen Rabbit that was not only stick-shift for gear but was diesel. I couldn't wait to get rid of that thing because I couldn't find a diesel gas station even if my life depended on it. I couldn't wait to get rid of it. When I sold it and used the money to buy my new car, it was one of the happiest days of my life. It was an ugly tan color on top of everything.
I feel like I had a similar car. It was a Volkswagen Rabbit. It was diesel. For some reason, there were a lot of diesel VWs and stuff in my family. It had, “Talk About Beer.” It was one of those things where they had that the ceiling whatever material that was supposed to stick to the ceiling. It was parachuting itself down. That was fun.
I didn't know how to drive a stick shift. The gearbox on that car must have been destroyed. Whoever bought it, I had to put in a new transmission. I was going down the freeway in a second.
The next one is what's the most recent thing that you purchased, Tom?
It was my Tesla probably. I'm thinking of big purchases. I went electric and bought my Tesla Model S. I can't imagine ever driving into a gas station again and fueling up. It was going like from my Atari to my Mac computer or Sega or whatever. It was such a leap in terms of technology. It was advanced that I couldn't believe it. It was one of the best purchases I've made.
It would have been better if you took an old Rabbit beater and put a Tesla power system in it. That would be fun.
I love The Tesla-vinyl combination there. It's about right.
Michael, you alluded to your most recent purchase previously. Am I right?
Yeah. I replaced my phone. This is my new Google Pixel 7. I’m very happy with it. Nice work, Google.
Don't say anything to Google directly. It will activate that damn thing that tries to answer all your questions. Going back to you, Michael, what's the most recent thing you sold?
Probably a few months ago, I sold an old set of DJ equipment that I used for a long time because I replaced it with a more compact set of DJ equipment. I still DJ at various clubs. I still have DJ equipment, but I sold my old setup and replaced it with a newer and more compact setup.
I'm imagining Michael with some sunglasses on late at night doing some DJing. I can see it.
Follow me on Facebook, SoundCloud, and Instagram. Don't forget to smash that like button.
You got to drop your name now, Mike.
Go follow SnakDaddy on Facebook, SoundCloud, and Instagram.
We're back to Tom. What's the most recent thing that you sold?
I don't have a good answer for you on this. I probably don't sell much because I don't buy things I don't need. What I have, I keep. I'm going to stop at that.
There you go. For the next one then, we'll hit back to you. What's your most prized possession, Tom?
I'm going to give you two answers here. One, my wife and my children are my most prized possession. They'll be my property until they're eighteen and then they'll be someone else's problem. Second are my vinyl records. I have over 3,000 vinyl records. I’m very proud of the collection I built. I care deeply about them, not more than my kids, but it is certainly up there.
I love that answer from a lawyer as well. We do get a lot of people who say, “My family, but they're not my property.” You get to say, “They're family, but they're not my property, or until they're eighteen, they are.” There are legal implications. Michael, how about you? What's your most prized possession?
For the sake of consistency, I will say the most prized relationship in my life is my wife. It’s not a possession nor a thing. If the question was, “What is your most prized possession?” I would say my piano. I've been playing music since I was three years old. Music holds a special place in my heart. It gives me such joy. This piano, which I play pretty much every day, satisfies my three big criteria for a hobby. It brings me a lot of joy, stimulates me intellectually, and annoys my wife.
That is the thing about piano playing. You can get in that zone where it sounds great to you, but everybody else is like, “Shut up.” What kind of piano is it?
It's a Yamaha. It's a digital piano. It's a Yamaha Clavinova, which is their digital piano.
We got to get you an acoustic piano. You don't know this, but you're talking to a piano expert and a tuner. As a matter of fact, this is another life of mine. I tune pianos. I have some piano industry businesses. You got to get an acoustic piano. Take a look at Klavins Pianos. This is a very fascinating piano. I've been talking with the maker of this.
The guy got started building pianos by building a piano that was so big he had to climb a staircase to play it in order to create this huge bass sound out of it. He was doing that back in the ‘80s. Now, he has created some smaller things called the Una Corda in collaboration with Nils Frahm, a great improvising piano player. Check out that instrument. I've seen quite a few of them streaming into California.
I'll have to check it out. I know Una Corda because there are a number of digital samplers of the Una Corda out there for purchase for use in making music. We’ll talk about this another time.
Let's go back to you, Michael. If you could buy anything in the world, digital, physical, service, or experience that's for sale, what would it be?
I'm going to say an acoustic piano.
There you go. You had to. I forced the answer, leading the witness. Tom, if you could buy anything in the world, digital, physical, service, or experience that's for sale, what would it be?
I can think of many things that are not for sale or realistic, including a time machine. It’s not necessarily in the forward direction. I would love to go back in time as well maybe more than going forward. I am a sponge when it comes to information. I love being around incredibly visionary and intelligent people. I would probably spend that money if I had it or that opportunity on sitting in a room and having an old-fashioned coffee or whatever with Warren Buffet for an hour and saying, “You’ve been alive almost 100 years. You've built billions of dollars of wealth for yourself and for others. Tell me everything you know.” That would probably be one of them.
It'd be on point if you paid for a meeting with him and he said, “The secret to making money is taking the money people giving you and running. See you, sucker.” For the next question, let's go back to you, Tom. If you could pass on one of your personality traits to the next generation, what would it be?
It's one thing in not just the legal profession but in the professional world generally. The challenge is work ethic. I feel like in the generation I grew up in and maybe those before me, the work ethic was so incredibly strong. This will answer your second question that may follow this. Sometimes, it was maybe to the extreme. I would say work ethic and dedication to the craft.
That sounds good. I’d recommend a book by Ray Dalio, Principles for Dealing with the Changing World Order. It’s a fascinating book about the rise and fall of various economies and civilizations. He notes a very clear pattern in the fall period of various civilizations like the work ethic declines.
That’s right. AI is going to challenge it even more, unfortunately.
Michael, what about you? If you could pass on a personality trait to the next generation, what would it be?
My sense of humor. For that to die with me would be such a shame. If I were going to be a little more serious, I would say empathy. It is empathy in the sense of being able to put yourself in somebody else's shoes and understand and think about what they're feeling and where they're coming from. It’s one of the most important underrated traits in being a lawyer, a friend, and a partner. That’s something that’s important.
That's a good one. We've had that a few times. Back to you then, Michael. If you could eliminate a personality trait from the next generation, what would you choose?
The world could deal with a little less of my inherently Jewish sense of anxiety. If the next generation were able to shed some of that, that'd be okay. Although maybe that makes me a better lawyer. I don't know.
Also, be careful about wanting to eliminate Jewish things here. This can get you in deep water.
Fair enough.
Tom?
What I would eliminate is probably taking my work ethic to the extreme by having some balance. I've gotten much better at it. I got married and started a family much later in life than many people. That was because I was so focused on what I wanted to do in my professional accomplishments, which was fine. In my case, I came around, but some people don't ever come around to understanding that there has to be a balance. I like to call it work-life balance. Some generational shifts have flipped it and made it more life-work balance where life comes first and then work. Finding a balance and not letting my work ethic go to the extreme would be one of the traits that I would eliminate.
That sounds good. I always like to think about it like working out. They can scientifically prove to you that if you try to workout all day long and never give yourself any rest, you're not going to build any muscle or probably atrophy or system in case in point. You always got to have that rest and recovery. It's a natural part of the system. The last two questions are relatively simple, Tom, unless you cannot legally disclose, what did you do before joining us on the show?
I can legally disclose it. I had lunch. It’s simple.
That’s nice. What about you, Michael?
Before and after the show, I'm working on a piece of litigation in the DeFi space that is occupying my attention and time in the most fun and interesting way possible. I love litigating. I love trying to win and figuring out what arguments to make. For better or worse, it’s one of the joys of my life.
You answered the last question, which is what are you going to do after the show. Tom, it’s back to you. We'll close it out. What are you doing after the show? Is it having lunch again?
Exactly. I got to eat to go to the gym. My days are quite filled with speaking with clients on the phone and navigating a variety of issues, whether it's Web3 or traditional media and entertainment. I got to say it is one of the most interesting and exciting times I've been in this business in 25-plus years, most of that as a lawyer. It is a fun time to be a media and entertainment lawyer. We're doing some incredibly cool stuff with a variety of clients, whether it's the TikToks of this world or other types of technology companies like traditional studios. I'm going to go back to doing all that interesting stuff with my clients the rest of the day and guiding them through challenging legal questions and scenarios.
That sounds appropriate. That’s perfect. That concludes our Quick Hitters segment. Thanks for participating. That was a lot of fun. What was it, licorice pizza or something? I like that term.
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We do have a Hot Topic segment next. Let's jump into one at least. We'll hit a Hot Topic. This is the news of the day that we like to chit-chat about. I'll read a headline and some texts and we'll give some commentary. The first one up here is Web3 Entertainment Studio Toonstar to Release an NFT-Backed TV Series ‘Space Junk’. They will release this series. It is a story about trash collectors in space written by Workaholics producer Dominic Russo and stars Napoleon Dynamite actor, John Heater and School of Rock actor Tony Cavalero.
Fans of the show will be able to mint Space Junk NFTs on the Theta blockchain, giving them an opportunity to engage with the project's intellectual property by building the show's narrative, creating characters, and participating in token-holder-only experiences. This is right up your alley, Tom, this whole idea of getting NFTs and Web3 involved in the entertainment industry. Have you heard of this? What do you think?
I hadn't. Thank you for sharing. This is the exact melding of the world, the meeting of the world, or the collision of the world maybe. It sounds cool if they can get it off the ground and make it happen. It involves animation, which is an area that I'm quite involved with outside of Web3. I have a number of clients that do some really cool stuff. Shout out to Titmouse which does Big Mouth on Netflix. If you haven't seen it, it is a great show. I have that, as well as Star Trek: Lower Decks. Chris Prynoski and Shannon who run that company are some of the coolest, trippiest people you'll ever meet. They're incredible.
Animation meets Web3 meets traditional media and entertainment is where the future of this world is going. Fan engagement, collecting NFTs, and being able to keep people in your ecosystem is what this is all about. NFTs and Web3 create a whole new layer that hasn't existed in the past. The one thing that technology has brought in the biggest way, and it is still happening, is the term I like to use which is a mouthful. It's disintermediation. It’s cutting out the middle person. Technology has done that.
We saw that with streaming. You didn't need to go to the video store to rent your video. You didn't need to go to the theater. You went to your streaming service to get your content directly. What we're seeing is a leap from even over that party directly to the creator. As that direct fan engagement happens between creator and fan, a whole new world will open up for creators. This is a great example of that. It's pretty cool.
Michael, do you have any comments on that?
I'll comment quickly. I happen to not be familiar with that particular project, but I do agree with Tom. This is one of the hot exciting areas in the NFT space. I do work with a company called BCL, which is the Web3 arm of Fox.
We've had them on. That's great.
I didn't know that. We'll talk about that in a second. They released a show called Krapopolis, which is a Dan Harmon animated show.
That’s what we talked about.
Someone has already spoken about that project. That has a lot of the same features where the idea is you can use these NFTs for fan engagement. It's another way to engage with your fans and create a sense of community where people talk about it on Discord. They can help make decisions on a show. We're seeing a lot more of these projects. I worked with them on that. It's a very cool project. Dan Harmon is a very funny guy.
That's cool to have that overlap. That’s a little callback for the audience. Go check out that episode.
Who did you have?
NFT Girl and Tommaso Sandretto. Do you know those guys, both of them?
I may know NFT Girl, depending on who that is, but I know Tommaso.
I forget her actual name. It was a great episode. There are a lot of fun stuff going on there. Let’s move on from Hot Topics in the interest of time. Do you guys get roll pretty soon at the end of the half-hour here?
It’s eight minutes for me.
Let's skip Hot Topics. Thanks for participating in that. The next segment would be our Shout Out. I understand you guys have a couple of maybe cool community members, partners, or admirations you'd like to call out. Why don't you give a shout-out?
I'll go first. I gave a shout-out already to the Titmouse team who I think highly of. If you haven't seen one of their shows, you're missing out if you're an animation fan. The other client that is Web3-immersed is Orange Comet and Dave Broome who I've been friends with. He has been a client of mine. He was the creator of The Biggest Loser and a bunch of other great TV series we've done together. By leaning into NFTs and Web3, he built this wonderful company with his partners and has done some of the greatest drops including the Scottie Pippen drop and the Anthony Hopkins drop. They've done drops for sports teams. They're building a number of cool metaverse-type initiatives and environments.
They helped bring William Shatner to our event, Outer Edge. That was awesome.
What I love about those guys is that for them, NFTs and Web3 are about the merging of the highest quality content with the Web3 space. Everything they create, they take incredible pride in making it look Hollywood quality. It's incredible. You've seen their NFTs. They are all original handmade creators that put that artistic sense into it. I'm proud to be friends with Dave. I'm proud to be their lawyer. I'm excited to see what they're going to be doing in the future.
Dave's a fellow musician as well. I wanted to jam with them during the event, but that did not move out. Are there any other shout-outs, Michael, before we wrap?
It is the amazing team members that we have. There are probably too many to name, but some of the leaders in the blockchain practice are Margo, Mark, James, Deborah, Eric, Deanna, Matt, and Ben. They all know who they are. They are amazing. We have an amazing team that is energetic, collaborative, and family-like. I couldn't be happier to be a part of that team.
BCL, a big shout out to them. I have done a lot with them over the past few years. They always have a whole bunch of different cool projects. We've done NFTs with Dolly Parton, USFL, and Krapopolis. They have some cool stuff coming out. Sorare is an NFT fantasy gaming platform. They've done some cool projects to launch NBA and MLB-themed fantasy products for their NFTs. Being a part of those projects might have been some of the highlights of my career. They were exciting, cutting-edge, and cool projects. They have an amazing team. I like using their products, so a big shout out to them. Thanks for letting us work with you.
That’s awesome. Thanks a lot for helping us to know what's going on there in your lives and what's cool. That’s pretty much most of the episode. We want to wrap here and make sure before we do that to find out where the audience can go to find out more about you guys and DLA Piper’s capabilities and activities. What would be the best place to find out more?
It’s probably the website, but Mike and I are both very active on LinkedIn. The website is DLAPiper.com. You can find our profiles there if you do a search under my last name or Mike's last name. On LinkedIn, I’m always happy to add, connect, and follow. We love being on LinkedIn and sharing info and insights. I’m less active on some of the other platforms but I still monitor and track them.
That’s perfect. Does that cover everything?
I think so.
That sounds good. We've reached the outer limit at the Edge of NFT for today. Thanks for exploring with us. We've got space for more adventures on the starship so invite your friends and recruit some cool strangers that will make this journey all so much better. How? Go to Spotify or iTunes. Rate us and say something awesome. Go to EdgeOfNFT.com to dive further down the rabbit hole. Look us up on all major social platforms by typing @EdgeOfNFT with no spaces and start a fun conversation with us online. Lastly, be sure to tune in next time for more great NFT content. Thanks again for sharing this time with us.
Important Links
- Watch.OuterEdge.live
- DLA Piper
- Cryptocurrency and Digital Asset Regulation: A Practical Guide for Multinational Council and Transactional Lawyers
- Facebook - SnakDaddy
- SoundCloud - SnakDaddy
- Instagram - SnakDaddy
- Principles for Dealing with the Changing World Order
- Blockchain Creative Labs (BCL), Fox Entertainment's Creative Force in Web3 Media Dropping Krapopolis NFT & Comedy Series
- Tom Ara – LinkedIn
- Michael Fluhr – LinkedIn
- Spotify – Edge of NFT Podcast
- iTunes – Edge of NFT Podcast
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