Interview with Bill Patry, Senior Copyright Counsel at Google

Dear readers, you may be aware that this Kat has a podcast - Whose Song is it Anyway? That she co-hosts with Jules O'Riordan (otherwise known as Judge Jules), interviewing people from the music industry about artists rights. 

 

This week's episode may be of interest to readers since the guest is the legendary Bill Patry. We know Bill as someone with an extensive copyright career, from private practice, to law maker, professor and now Senior Copyright Counsel at Google. What you may not know, is that Bill is also a life long musician.

In the interview, Bill talks about his copyright upbringing, gives a heartfelt account of his training in Manhattan and enlightens us on the historical coastal split between the copyright lawyers of the east coast and west coast of America.

Bill gives us insights into the challenges of law making, such as listening to a chorus of stakeholders and to the extent possible, future-proof the legislation. 

The thing that I learned the most, about law making for congress, is to be humble about it.

We also talk about the US test for copyright infringement particularly with reference to the cases of Creedance Clearwater Revival, Blurred Lines, Stairway To Heaven and the Katy Perry case. 

The Blurred Lines case was a stain on the Federal Judiciary… it was a terrible opinion. 

Bill explains why he would do away with expert witnesses in copyright infringement cases and shares the one thing he thinks needs changing in US copyright law to stop copyright trolling. 

If you would like to listen to the full interview you can find it on any podcast platform and the links are here.