Anita Sharma from Sharma Law joins me on the podcast this week! Anita is not only a lawyer for talent and entertainment, but dapples in the creative arts herself through filmmaking. We discuss talent contracts, collaborations, and everyone's favorite Metaverse topic: NFTs.

Welcome to the meta woman podcast we address the

issues, opportunities and challenges facing women in the

development of the metaverse the biggest revolution since the

internet itself. Every week we bring you conversations with top

female talent and business executives operating in the

gaming and crypto industries. Here's your host Lindsey, the

boss pass. The metal woman podcast starts now.

Hello, and welcome to the metal woman podcast part

of the holodeck media Podcast Network. I'm your host Lindsay

the boss pass from struggle to success. We're covering it all.

To our returning listeners. Thank you so much for supporting

the show. Leave those five star ratings and reviews you already

know what to do tell a friend about the pod. For new

listeners. Welcome. I hope you enjoy. We have a great guest

this week, if any of you also listen to the business of

esports. You have heard her before in a wonderful episode

that I highly recommend checking out as well. We have a Nita

Sharma, founder of Sharma law, which specializes in

entertainment, talent, representation, intellectual

property, digital media production, legal and corporate

commercial law, which has a whole lot of specialties, which

is awesome. Anita, welcome to the show. To start, please feel

free to introduce yourself. Tell us a couple sentences about your

background. Let the audience get to know you a little.

Sure. Yeah, I mean, I'm excited to be here. So thank you

so much for inviting me, Lindsay, you did a great job,

sort of summing up the firm and all those different areas. So

thank you for that. So, um, like Lindsay said, my name is Anita

Sharma, I'm an attorney and be set in New York City. I'm an

entertainment lawyer. And I've been doing this for about 20

years. So it's been a long time and you know, started out in

traditional so to speak film and TV and we really turned our

focus to digital in about 2013. So, you know, excited to speak

to you about all things digital gaming, the metaverse, entities

the whole works.

Yes, they think that's gonna be so much fun. As

I was sort of lamenting to you before the show, I in covering

the metaverse, it's been very interesting, because I don't

really have a set definition for what it is. And I don't think

anyone else does either. And of course, Facebook changing its

name has shifted the conversation, but we will get to

all of that. I'm excited to talk about it with you. I would love

to start a little bit with your background in representing

gaming and esports talent, what that looks like for you what

your motivations were and starting to represent those

folks. And what it's just generally like to represent that

type of content creator.

Yeah, so my firm, we primarily represent talents, and

primarily in digital media, so a lot of influencers, digital

content creators, and now gamers. And so we really started

in the influencer space. And like I mentioned before, back in

2013, we were one of the first firms to really start

representing influencers. And I also like to call them digital

content creators, because I feel like influencers just like

turned into such a dirty word now. And people like think like,

it's just, you know, flaky people taking photos of

themselves all day on Instagram, whereas our clients are actually

creating like, incredibly compelling, you know, content on

the internet and on their social media platforms and elsewhere.

And so, am I often use the term digital content creator. So, you

know, we started back when I think people started to realize,

I think he was ranted as 13 that, that Social Media and

Gaming, were actually businesses and you could build businesses

from them. And it wasn't just all about cat videos was like,

you could actually create amazing content. And so, you

know, in starting there, and getting to where we are today,

you know, it was really last year that we started to turn our

focus to gamers and esports. And really looking at that and

saying it's really a logical extension of our practice,

right? You know, people are talking to us about Twitch all

the time, we're looking at what's happening there. It's

talent, you know, games are talent, as well. And, you know,

the first deal I did was, you know, for gamer who was joining

FaZe Clan. And so that was kind of starting at the top. So that

was incredibly interesting to me. And working through that

contract and seeing what was there and, and so I think, you

know, gamers are entertainers as well. And we like to represent

entertainers and creative people. And so again, it was

just a logical extension of the practice but also just an

incredibly interesting worlds.

Yeah, that's a really cool kind of way of

transitioning into that. And I can't believe that your first

deal was FaZe Clan member. That's awesome. That is kind of

that is a very high level very well known place to start, which

is awesome. Do you mainly in you can let me know if you can't

speak about this. But do you mainly do like Team contracts

and deals? Are you looking at content creation or is it a mix

of both or when specifically with these kind of gaming

digital creators? What is Is the What's your majority client look

like? Yeah,

sure, I can definitely speak to it. So we are doing all

kinds of contracts. So ranging from doing brand and sponsorship

deals, to merch contracts, and to some team contracts and

events, you know. So it's really like across the board, whatever

legal need comes up for the game or the talent. But we also do

trademark work, for example, and a lot of, you know, gamers

haven't thought about trademarking handles and things

like that. So we advise on that, you know, that area of IP. But

yeah, basically, we're general counsel to our clients, right.

So anything that comes up legal wise, that they need we help

with, and we work with their teams, if they have a team if

they have an agent, or a manager, or both, like we work,

you know, within that team, and it's really about helping, you

know, gamers, build businesses and elevate their profiles and

build their brands. And I think, you know, that's happening more

and more. Now. Gaming has been around for a very long time. But

I think it's only now I feel like the gaming industry is

where the influencer industry was in 2013. I feel like it's

now starting to realize this is a business gamers are starting

to understand. I need, you know, representation, I need help with

contracts, and are starting to you know, that structure is

starting to sort of be introduced to the gaming worlds.

Oh, I would love to ask you a little bit more

about that. How, what has changed for the influencing

industry between 2013 I think is when you said 2012 2013. And now

and then how do you see that change? Or that those similar

changes being incorporated into gaming? Yeah, I

mean, I think it's really all about people

realizing that social media is a platform on which they can build

businesses. So they have their social media platforms, just

like gamers would have Twitch, but they can actually do a whole

bunch of other stuff, right, built on that platform or built

from that platform. So they could start to do merch they can

start to do you know, content creation deals with other

companies, and obviously, the sponsorships brand deals. But I

feel like now in the influencer world, even though it's still

the Wild West, don't get me wrong. But it's definitely

there's more agencies out there. There's more agents

representing, you know, influencers, managers, like all

of the big agencies are obviously involved. CHW mme, UTA

three everybody at the same was, you know, they also have gaming

divisions. So it's like these structures, and these, you know,

people and represented representatives are sort of

coming on board now, and are saying, Look, let me help you,

because we see the potential here. And it's sort of, you

know, becoming more streamlined and sort of more in line with

like, common business practices.

Gotcha. That makes sense. In speaking of social

media, what are the kind of crossovers that you see between

your gaming influencers? And your social media content

producers are? There's, there's obviously a link between the

two, and we all know that at face value, but from your

perspective, what are the positives and negatives? What

does it mean for gaming to be moving more into this social

media type of space? I would love to just get your thoughts

on on that kind of that the link between those two?

Yeah, I mean, I think that I think it's all the same,

to be honest, like Twitch is a social media platform. So it

just happens to be the platform that most gamers are on. Right.

So but those gamers have followers, people comment

people, you know, watching the same way that someone would

watch, you know, an Instagram real or or scroll through

somebody's Instagram page. So I don't, I don't see like a

distinction there. I think that, you know, gamers are also social

media personalities. And they're just the platform is different,

right? Because their platform is tWitch, mainly. So it's, I don't

necessarily see, like, a distinction between the two. In

terms of crossover. It's sort of like, you know, I think a lot of

gamers don't have a presence on other platforms. But I do see

that changing now. Right? I think it's, as these gamers

become more personalities and more sort of brands, no, they

become brands themselves. It's like they're venturing onto

different platforms. And I'm definitely seeing that

happening. I mean, in terms of negatives, it's sort of like,

it's, you know, the negatives that you see with all the

platforms and anyone you know, putting themselves out there on

any of these platforms is just you know, the trolls, you know,

racism sexism, I mean, that's definitely sadly is not that

away. And you know, that's a huge negative because obviously,

we know on the internet, everybody's anonymous, so you

can be anonymous, I should say, definitely be anonymous. So

it's, that's that's an issue that sadly, is not going away

and I know a lot of gamers and especially female gamers and

gamers of color. LGBTQ gamers have really suffered because of

that and it's really unfortunate

Yeah, that's definitely. I mean, there's all

kinds of policy and legislation being talked about with that.

Unfortunately, I think it's just, there's no good kind of

policy solution for that. And I think big companies are trying

to figure it out. And I would, I would really like to get kind of

your opinion on what big companies are doing as well,

because you talk about influencers, moving cross

platform and doing all of that, there is still and we've seen

this, I'm mainly thinking about Doctor disrespect here, who was

banned from twitch. And he then has had definitely a resurgence

and a big following on other social media platforms. But from

a legal perspective, when you're thinking about your clients, how

are you thinking about the power that platforms have? Of course,

it's a First Amendment right for platforms to be able to keep and

get rid of whomever they would like. But are you kind of

thinking about pushing clients to use multiple platforms? In

case there's some type of violation? It could be even a

non toxic type of violation? Are you thinking that it's, it's

good to kind of go all in with certain platforms that have

better or clear rules and restrictions? What are you

thinking about the relationship between creators and platforms

and kind of the power dynamic between the two?

Yeah, I mean, I think a lot of creators stuff, burnout,

or just creating on one platform, you know, or streaming

on one platform, I mean, I think it's not really my place to tell

the client like, oh, you should be three different platforms and

be creating all this content. I mean, I think it really depends

on the individual themselves, right, and how much content that

they want to create. I think that, in a way, we're lucky that

there are platforms out there, if you do get kicked off, one,

you can go to another platform. And hopefully, you were kicked

off for the wrong reasons, and not the right reasons. You know,

if you're kicking off or making like, terrible, you know,

remarks, vote people, etc. We don't necessarily want you on

another platform. But I do think like Facebook, gaming is

aggressively going after gamers, YouTube Gaming is aggressively

going after gamers and trying to get them to sign on with them.

So it's a good thing. There's other platforms for sure. But

again, like I wouldn't tell my clients if you need to be on a

bunch of platforms. I mean, it's just it really is up to them.

That makes sense. Yeah, it was ensure, from, from

your experience, and from the people you've worked with, if it

was, I don't know better or worse to be on multiple. But the

the burnout part is definitely real.

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, most of my clients are on more

than one platform. You know, at least two if not three, but it

is like, you know, now tick tock, obviously, is huge, and

the pressure to be there on tick tock So, but it is, I mean, it's

creating a ton of content constantly, every single day.

And that's, that's tough. So I think that's, you know,

something people are keeping in mind as they're thinking about

all these different platforms.

When taking a step back to when creators are

actually getting started. When do you recommend or when do you

think I don't recommend is the right word, because I don't

expect you to give free legal advice here. But at what level?

Do you think creators and influencers should start

bringing on legal support services? Or are you seeing that

a lot of people maybe aren't bringing them on and winding up?

Kind of regretting it or, or taking or moving backwards a

little bit later? What does that look like for content creators

out there who may be listening? Yeah,

I mean, this is a question I get asked so

commonly, and I feel like it's just the most popular question,

especially for talent. So I mean, it's, sadly, we do often

come in after the fact right, so we will come in because somebody

has signed something. And they're like, I signed this, and

I want to get out of it. What is this? They're telling me, No,

they own all my content, or whatever. So we do try to do

some damage control there. I understand. You know, it's

intimidating, it's intimidating to think about hiring a lawyer,

people think they're going to be paying 1000s and 1000s of

dollars in fees. And, and I understand that, but at the same

time, if you are serious about building a business, about

elevating your brand and all those, you know, all that other

great stuff. The second you have a contract in front of you, you

should have an attorney review that contract because even the

boilerplate the legal boilerplate within it affects

your rights and it imposes obligations on you. And because

you're creating your own content as talent it's so important to

protect that you know, and to make sure just can't use it any

way they want for like minimal compensation. So I would say you

know, when you get those that first piece of paperwork, it

would be good to like consult with somebody and you know, get

some help with it and there will be upfront costs, but there's

upfront possibility business no matter what that businesses. So

it's just absolutely, you know, consider and hopefully, you

know, you can find an attorney that can help them be

affordable. But I do think it's really important.

I like that you brought up specifically signing

contracts, because I think that's a very easy marker for a

lot of people looking to get into the industry. And I'm so

glad I could ask you the questions that you've been asked

20 times already?

No, it definitely always finds you know, and it's

so interesting. I totally get it.

Well, speaking of things that are on the mind, a

couple months ago, you wrote an opinion piece on Twitch and DMCA

takedowns. We'll link to it in the show notes. People can check

it out, if they want to read the whole thing. But for those of

you that aren't familiar, I'm going to read a quick scenario

that I need to actually wrote to describe a DMCA takedown. If you

don't know the acronym, DMCA, please just Google it. At this

point, I almost feel like it's part of the vernacular because

it's been around for a while. But this this scenario is that a

twitch user plays a third party copyrighted song in the

background while they stream, the copyright holder of the song

finds out in sense Twitch DMCA takedown notification,

generally, without warning to the alleged infringing Twitch

user. Once the complaint has been verified, Twitch will

remove the allegedly infringing content and issue a DMCA notice

to take down the allegedly infringing Twitch user. So

essentially, is people having their content removed for things

like playing music in the background when they might not

realize that's a copyright violation. So in addition to

this article, you've done more work on how this type of action

from a platform to a content creator can be really damaging.

I was wondering if you could speak more about how you handle

these scenarios with your clients and what creators can do

to protect themselves from having this happen to

them? Sure, yeah. I mean, it's, it's tough. It's a

really tough situation. Because, you know, twitch in particular,

is a platform I don't think has been helpful to users at all.

twitches, oh, my Amazon, it's unbelievable to be that Amazon

has Amazon music. And somehow there is some deal there that

helps creators use music, you know, where there is a catalog

of music, they can use it, our current hits, like we're not

talking about, you know, stock music from decades. We're

talking

about such a good point. Yeah, I have the ability.

Yeah, exactly.

So I mean, I don't know, I'm just speaking, I don't

know what's going on behind the scenes there. Like how it works.

But my point is, from an outsider's perspective, and as a

lawyer who represents creators and talent and gamers, it's,

it's frustrating, right? Because they should really be helping

gamers, use music, be able to use music and the way that they

do that, as they make a deal with music companies. And

Facebook has done that already. You know, YouTube has to deal

with music company. So it's, it's the bottom line is this if

you cannot use third party copyrighted content in your

content, and that includes music, and it's, you know, I

always tell clients that, you know, I explained it this way,

how would you feel if somebody took some of your IP, something

you created, whether it's a stream or video or photo, and

just used it without a credit to you, or any compensation you are

without reaching out to you, right? You would probably be

kind of annoyed with that, right? You might not want you

might not say, Well, you might not go after the legally, but it

would be annoying, it would be like that's your work, right?

That they've just they're using in their brain fitting

commercially. So I advise my clients not to use third party

music and their content and to be aware of that, or any kind of

third party IP. And, you know, that's just the way it is, I

think, people think, for some reason that the internet or you

know, the blockchain and these different things that IP laws

don't apply. And, you know, for better or worse they do, they do

still apply. And so, you know, for me, the solution is for

Twitch to make a deal with the labels and music companies like

other platforms have and help their users, you know, access

legally.

Are there any kind of those systemic changes that

you think would help creators in the future avoid this kind of

infringement and also give give credit to the people that

they're using IP from as well.

So by systemic changes, DB changes within the platform

themselves?

Yeah. changes within the platforms. Yeah. Or

within rules of use, or? Yeah, it's hard for me to Yeah, but

let's stick with those within the platforms. Yeah.

I mean, it's like a set. I mean, the only way that

you could use somebody else's IP is if you have a license to use

that Right, or like they've given you permission in some

way, or they decide rights to you or something like that. So

it's, there's really nothing like a platform do in terms of

its Terms of Use except for, you know, obtain those licenses to

allow users use third party IP, like music, and they're in a

position to do that. And they make billions of dollars. And

there, they can do it. So I don't know what's preventing it

from happening. Like I said, I'm not privy to any of those

conversations or anything, but I'm very curious as to why it's

not happening. And it's, again, coming from the talent side,

it's infuriating, because without the talent, there would

be no channel, you know? So that's kind of it's frustrating,

for sure. Yeah, well, in

you, you've spoken quite a bit about the talent

side and about the creative process and how you're really

looking to support artists. And you yourself have a pretty

illustrious background in creative pursuits, including

producing films that have premiered at festivals and were

picked up for distribution, How has being in the creative

process and your background in that helped you understand not

only the games clients that you might bring on, but some of the

other digital creators that you're working with?

Well, you're very kind. First of all, it's called

illustrious, I don't know if that but the thing, how many

people can say with that they've done anything

in film production, give yourself some credit,

shape that that's very kind of you. So we so I've been

practicing law for a while for within about eight or nine

years, and I was sort of disillusioned a little bit, and

I, you know, done the big firms thing, and was just like, not

loving the law or being a lawyer. And so I was always

interested in, you know, the creative process and working

with creative people and producing. And so I went back to

film school in Canada, where I'm from, and, you know, did this

program called the producers Lab, which was just amazing, and

life changing, you know, and all of a sudden, I was sitting on

the other side of the table in the sense that I was the talent,

you know, I was the creative person working with other

creative people in order to produce film and film had always

been my first love. So it was just such a dream come true. You

know, and that was an amazing experience. And I think, you

know, I graduated from that program. And I did, you know,

the first short, I produced, you know, premiered at the Toronto

Film Festival, which was exciting and made its way around

the worlds different festivals, and produced an indie feature

that got picked up by each one. And that was all exciting and

amazing. And I realized, at the end of the day, that I didn't

love being a hands on producer on a daily basis, and I but I

really loved business and legal aspects of creating things. And

that was where my strength was, and my passion was, and so, you

know, I went back to law, I would, I would love to produce,

if I just had the bandwidth, it's so hard to sort of do

everything I'm hoping to get back to it, because I, I would

love to executive produce, you know, it's not him not producing

every day, but putting projects together and stuff, I would love

to get back to that. But you know, it's, it's helpful,

because, first of all, you know, I understood what it felt to be

vulnerable, you know, it's near the lawyer, you're not

vulnerable, like, you have all the answers, people are slightly

intimidated by you. But in this case, I was putting myself on

the other side of the table, and really, you know, my ideas were

under scrutiny, you know, I was getting feedback, it was when

you're a creative, this is what happens, you know, people tell

you about new give you feedback on your content and your ideas.

And, and I feel like that really gives me a great understanding

of my clients and the passion to really advocate for them,

because I understood what it feels like, and also how hard it

is to create content. I mean, they all make it look so easy,

but it's hard, it's difficult. It's especially good content,

and and it should be rewarded. So you know, having that

experience just made me even more passionate for advocating

for creative people and talent. And, you know, I love what I do.

I'm lucky that I'm somebody that comes to work, and I love what I

do every day. But that that to me was really besides learning

the technical skills of how to create something. Just being

able to experience something in a different way, in the

entertainment business in a different way, was just

unbelievably rewarding and helpful to me in my legal

career.

I think the point that you make about people who

are actually the digital creators to being subjected to

the most criticism and being in the most vulnerable position is

one that I had not thought about before either. That's a really

astute point to me, because we often see an end product and we

don't see the work that goes in to it, and we don't think about

what kind of criticisms we're giving, when we don't

necessarily appreciate that work in the way that the creator

intended. So I can, I can really appreciate that. And I will look

at digital media a little bit differently as a result. So

thank you for that. And for sharing that experience, I do

want to pivot a little bit in our, in our last phone call, you

talked about how you wanted to represent more women in the

industry, and how you set yourself, you have also already

set yourself apart and that you're a creator, or that you've

experienced both sides, that the underground experience of

actually being a creator, and a lot of the clients who represent

our Creator, so you can see it from both angles. What are the

differences you saw, both as a creator and now as

representation for women in the industry?

Yeah, I mean, you know, one of the reasons I was very

interested in getting into gaming was because I was reading

about all these female gamers that were being abused online,

were not getting the recognition that they deserved. And that,

you know, really made me angry. And I think as women, we have

sadly experienced this a lot in no matter what industry you're

in is, you know, always having to sort of work harder than your

male counterparts or being under, you know, an increased

amount of scrutiny and, you know, being expected to sort of,

not self promote, and not shout from the rooftops, because

that's that, you know, something that women should do. And so

that, you know, I think it's improved slightly, I think, the

same problems that female creators face. If women just

face in general around whether you recreate or you're somebody

in business, or you're an attorney, I think it's, you

know, there's the same problems that I just talked about. So I'm

not seeing a big difference there. To be honest, I think we,

we, as women, we continue to try to elevate each other's voices,

you know, I can elevate female creative voices, and female, you

know, whenever talent signs on to me, like I always sided with

me, I always say to them, your success is our success, right?

Everybody know, meeting each other. And that's, you know,

that's definitely the case. And I'm really proud of my firm's

roster, we're really diverse, we represent a an incredible number

of women who are doing amazing things just really proud of, and

I will say this, you know, and I'll date myself a little bit

here, but this whole Gen Z, sort of Gen Z situation, or, you

know, the Gen Z generation, so to speak, I will say that I

think a lot of these young women are not only amazing, but

actually, you know, mean, what they say when they say they want

to work with other women, they actually do. And I think that's

incredibly helpful. And I think that's something that has

changed. I don't think, no, not this my own generation. But I

don't think there was that commitment there. And I see it

with younger people. And I think it's amazing, I see a lot of

young women that are like, I want to work with other women.

And they do. And I think that's bringing, that's going to be

helpful to address some issues that sadly, are still there

today, whether you're a creator, businessperson or attorney,

wherever you are as a woman.

I wonder if that's because there has been an AI,

this is a phrase that I've used quite a bit on this podcast, but

it certainly feels like there has been a shift from

competition to collaboration. It's to me, it feels like when I

was growing up, a lot of the women, industry leaders and

business people I had to look up to almost had to put other women

down to secure their own spot in an industry. You know, I'm not

like other women, I'm one of the guys kind of kind of thing to

fit in. Right. And it feels as if that's going by the wayside.

And it feels as if women are getting into positions of power

and are saying, hey, you know, I want to hire more women and give

them the opportunity that I didn't have, rather than

ferociously hanging on to the opportunity for themselves. I

don't know if that's the phenomenon you're describing.

That's definitely my take on it. But it certainly feels we've

become much more collaborative, which is something I really

appreciate.

I mean, I 100% agree with that. And I think that a

large part of it is the internet, right? Because we're

able cooperate with each other very easily. You're able to

connect with people easily there aren't all these gatekeepers to

go through where it's like, Oh, I wish I could contact somebody

at this company. This woman that seems really interesting, and

I'm interested in what she's doing. You can DM people now you

can reach that, you know, it's the gatekeepers are gone. And I

think the spirit of collaboration is definitely it's

a great way to put it. I love that you put it that way. I

think it's definitely moved from competition to collaboration.

But there's also more room for women now, right? There's more

room for many different industries. And, you know,

hopefully we continue to make these strides in this progress

where it's like it is, you know, half the female, you know, half

the directors nominated for an Oscar are women like, I hope we

can get in or we're not there. Right. But I hope we can get

there. So it's, and I do think it's moving in the right

direction. But I do have a lot of faith in, you know, all of

these young women who are doing amazing things coming out of

college, working with other women uplifting their voices.

And I'm seeing it for sure. And it's definitely a shift.

That's so one of the things that we've been

talking about on this podcast, in addition to that has been the

building of the metaverse and how one of my big things is, I

do not want the crypto bros to be the ones that are fully in

charge of it. But I would love to get some of your thoughts on

the metaverse how your clients are exploring this idea. As

we've talked about, I do think personally as well, that Gen Z

is a totally different take on it. You know Millennials were

the were considered the digital natives. But even for us, we

haven't fully integrated our lives online in the way some of

Gen Z has, particularly now that they are even having to do so

much school online. But what what kind of things are your

clients exploring within the metaverse arena? And what has

that been like for you representing digital artists and

digital content creators?

Yeah, so I think everybody sort of, it's

interesting, the beginning of 2022, everyone started to talk

about the metaverse, right. So this is like I feel like in the

last few weeks, yep. Right now is that people are sitting back

and observing and waiting. You know, they know that somehow

they're going to have some presence in the metaverse. You

know, these social media platforms. Like you talked

earlier, you and I for the show about, you know, Facebook,

changing the meta. So everyone's kind of I think, right now

sitting back and sort of waiting to see what happens. Because to

be honest, like, I feel like the metaverse is already here. And

in the form of things like fortnight, right like that in

Yeah. I'm not sure why everybody's like, Oh, this is

this crazy, new thing, but I think it's in within the gaming

industry. And this is where the gaming industry is particularly

interesting to me. They're already there. And they're

already doing it. And you know, coordinated ticular is having

concerts within the game, you know, live monsters. And that,

to me is really fascinating. And being somebody who loves

entertainment and loves the business. I just I saw gaming

being having this incredible foresight and already doing

things that nobody else was doing in that world. That that

was another reason I wanted to be involved in it. But I do

think right now my clients are sort of waiting to see like,

what is this about? And so that they're ready when it's time to

be part of that Metaverse of whatever form that's going to

take. I just don't think people know right now what the form is,

but I can tell you viewing contracts now. You know if if

we're talking about different platforms or exclusivity on

different social media platforms, we are carving out

the metaverse meaning we're saying this does not include the

metaverse not even knowing what that is yet. We might have

reserving the right to figure it out. When we get there instead

of sort of handing rights over to something we don't even know

what it is.

Right. That's such an interesting way of including

it without needing to define it because you're you're absolutely

right in that it's so undefined. And I would like to point out,

as I have before that this podcast was named before the

announcement of Facebook changing its name. So either

they copied us, or it was some really, really wild timing for

us.

company out there called meta that I think they're

fighting trademarks or something. But yeah, I mean,

that's a tough one to trade by. I can tell you right now.

I know. We'll see what happens with that. As as

someone who's also interested in digital art one of the few kind

of Metaverse II things that has that really exploded in 2021. I

guess when we were all bored at home was NF Ts. Do you represent

any clients getting into this space? How do you think about

this as someone who wants to see art rewarded? What are your

what's your take on the NFT marketplace and landscape?

Yeah, I love it. Yeah, great. Yeah, I think it's great.

I think that we do have clients that are getting into it, who

want them in tennis, or you know, we're helping we're

educating them on that process and platforms like open see and

other platforms you can use and helping them do deals and hiring

graphic designers etc. To help them you know, create the

artwork and that they want to miss And so yeah, I mean, look

at NFT is really just a certificate. It's a digital

certificate of ownership, you know, and it's created on the

blockchain and that tech, that piece is not going away. Right.

So I think when people talk about like, oh, like you bought

a JPEG for $3,000, like, Are you an idiot? Like, I don't, that's

not what it's about to be, right. Like whether that person

donated or not, is neither here nor there is lots of NF T, the

token is not going anywhere. And so right now we're seeing it

used in connection with digital art. And the mainstream media is

picking up the people story with everybody knows $69 million, you

know, or the 40 Yacht Club, people know all about those

celebrities buying those NF T's. But it's, it's so much more than

that. Like, I think you have to sort of look beyond all of what

the mainstream media hypes up and look at it simply as a

token, I mean, it's a tokenized asset. And so if you just boil

it down to that, and attack, I think it's really interesting. I

think it's a way for artists to, you know, control their, their

artwork, and who gets to buy it, and the different uses that

they're granting to that artwork, and also build

communities around their artwork, and be compensated for

that. That's really interesting and exciting to me, like I'm

not, you know, caught up in this NFT bubble and this and that,

like, I have no idea whether somebody, you know, the selling

things for hundreds of millions of dollars in the last and

that's not really my concern. I think, like I said, it's the

tech that's more interesting to me and this idea of these

tokenized assets.

That's a very well rounded take that I don't think

I've heard before. It seems like we either have people who are

complete diehards, or people who are, this is BS. And and you're

right, in that there hasn't been a lot of people who are looking

at the actual process behind it. And what it what that could

mean, everyone is totally caught up in the surface level stuff. I

love that you pointed out community building as well,

because that is a very powerful tool. And it's one that

definitely has, has taken off in conjunction with some of these

sales, but that nobody's talked about how many communities have

sprung

up like this successful NFT campaigns that you're not

seeing on the news are the ones that have built up these

communities, right. And within those communities, people want

to trade NSCs, they want to collect a certain artist or an

artist that like on a much smaller sort of micro scale.

That's what I'm interested in, because I think that's going to

get bigger, and that's going to be more artists are going to get

into that. I will say this, though, there's definitely

scammers out there. So the people that are like, this is

BS, I understand the skepticism, because there are scammers out

there. And a lot of people say and I do think there's some

truth to this, you do have a few big players involved, who, for

them, it's about raising the value of their crypto that they

earned that they own right, and how to put value onto that

crypto by buying these assets, and then selling them for higher

prices and keeping that you know, keeping the price of

crypto high, whatever that whatever version, the Kryptos

in, I do think that that's happening. But I do think

there's this whole other world underneath that, that where it's

actually going to be really useful to like the little people

like, you know, you and I like the average person, right, who

just is interested in digital art and tokenized assets. So,

you know, there's, there's cameras everywhere, but no, I,

what can you do?

But I think well, I like that. Yeah, I like that

nuanced take, though. And you're right. There's problems with in

any industry. It's not. It's not new to have issues in an

industry and especially a tech industry, if we're being real.

Yeah, that's completely understandable

government. I do think because of the money laundering

issues and stuff like that. I do think the government will get

involved in and that'll be another, you know, interesting

development, and we'll have to navigate that. And as attorneys

will have to know about it and help our clients navigate it, it

will happen. It hasn't happened yet. But you know, it's it's an

amazing world. It's evolving every day, but I would not write

off and MCs at all. That's a good

Yeah, I think that's a really good way of

putting it. I want to before we move on to our last segment, I

want to quickly summarize some of the things that we've talked

about. It's I can't believe we've already been talking for

almost 40 minutes now. It's gone by so quickly. We started with

digital creators and how they have a wide array of skills,

gaming influencers. It's looking a lot Like where social media

was in 2013, as in its social media and gaming platforms can

be a place to start and build a business. Social Media and

Gaming are really the same industry. And there's way too

much overlap to draw a distinction. People on all

platforms should be aware of how they're using third party IP.

One of the best things we talked about was how collaboration has

become much more at the forefront of getting different

people into the industry, particularly women. I'm hoping

that maybe that collaboration, not competition, also applies to

some different minority and other stakeholders. So we'll see

where that goes. But at least being able to widely reach

people and not having gatekeepers. Being able to DM

those people on LinkedIn and ask questions, has helped women

tremendously. I loved your take on the metaverse that it's

already here. That gaming has had incredible foresight on

building the metaverse and what people they have a lot of games

have done with people haven't been doing. I also like that you

said that you feel that there's a lot of observation going on.

And people are thinking about next steps and kind of seeing

what's going on and learning the industry. We rounded out a

discussion with NF T's which had to be the the buzzword of 2021.

But you had a very balanced and nuanced take, which is that the

press kind of overhyped, the artistic side and huge sales,

but that there's a lot of opportunity for tokenized act

assets and for everyone to use them. And I think that that's a

great point. So the very last segment I like to do I like to

do with every guest on the show, it's kind of a moment for you to

reflect on your career. And think about how your career has

changed over the years. So I would love to ask you what is

one thing you would like to tell your younger self about getting

into the gaming industry? Or in your case, kind of the gaming

and influencing industry and being successful?

Yeah, it's, you know, I think my younger self was pretty

confident, maybe border like cocky a little bit of what I

could accomplish in a short amount of time, I think, you

know, the biggest thing is that it takes time, and I recognize

that also with the gaming industry. You know, my firm, we

do represent some amazing gamers, but you know, we're

just, it's a new space for us. And it will take time. And you

know, it's important to develop relationships, and, you know,

talk to everybody and network. And, you know, I think it's

really I would tell my younger self, you know, don't think that

you're going to be the preeminent gaming attorney. You

know, in June of 2022, I would love if that would happen. But

these things take time. And it takes time to build a roster.

And so, you know, I'm confident it can happen and we will

continue to build our gaming practice, but you know, just

sound like a broken record, all of these things take time and

just slow down and really think about what we're doing and in

handle, you know, all of our matters of care which we do so.

Yeah, that's I think the biggest thing I would tell my younger

self.

I like that. Yeah. To to be patient. Easier said

than done. Thank you so much for coming on lead. I really

appreciate it. If for our listeners out there who haven't

checked out her interview on business of esports. I highly

recommend that as well. So great episode, where can people find

you? If you want to be found? Well,

sadly, I'm going to be the boring lawyer and just tell

you on LinkedIn, because that is really the only platform that

I've activated i i tell my clients you know, they're like,

Well, you don't really you know, you don't post on Instagram

stuff like you know, you probably want your attorneys to

maintain an error a little bit.

Totally agree with that.

To see all my personal life and every second of the

day, what kind of sandwich I ate earlier, but I Yeah, it's

LinkedIn is definitely the best place.

Got it? Well send send your law questions to Anita

on LinkedIn, if you still have them. For all of our listeners

out there, make sure you leave those five star ratings and

reviews. Be sure to also check out other holodeck media

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Tuesday. We'll see you next week.

Thank you.

Thanks for joining us here on meta woman. Make sure to

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