July302025
Ep6 Tim’s Travails: Meet GW Law Professor Mark Traphagen, the U.S. contributing author to the legal treatise, “Copyright Throughout the World”
October 2025 — This month on IP attorney and author Timothy Trainer’s podcast/video show we meet GW Intellectual Property Law Professor Mark Traphagen
Our topic: Artificial Intelligence and its impact on labor, with a focus on how AI impacts the creative/entertainment industries, including several recent developments:
- Anthropic’s decision to pay out $1.5 billion for downloading thousands of books in violation of copyright law
- The required human element to claim copyright to authored works
About our guest: Mark Traphagen is the U.S. contributing author to the legal treatise Copyright Throughout the World, and has taught international and co
mparative intellectual property law at the George Washington University Law School and the Munich Intellectual Property Law Center, a consortium that includes the Max Planck Institute for Innovation and Competition. After starting his legal career with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office and Finnegan Henderson LLP, Mr. Traphagen represented what is now the Software and Information Industry Association in negotiations for the WIPO Copyright Treaty and Congressional enactment of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. He also advised clients about the implementation and enforcement of the WTO TRIPS Agreement and prepared submissions for the annual “Special 301” review by the U.S. Trademark Representative. Today, Mr. Traphagen is the principal of Traphagen Law PLLC, where he practices in the fields of copyright and trademark, entertainment and sports law, advertising and promotions, and privacy and data security. Click here to get LinkedIn with Mark.
About Copyright Throughout the World: Edited by an internationally recognized expert in copyright law, Copyright Throughout the World is a guide to the copyright law of more than 30 nations. This three-volume set is useful for copyright practitioners working with the internet and other media and for academics researching comparative laws. It analyzes the important features of copyright law, related rights, and moral rights from countries throughout the world. Topics covered permit easy comparison of the laws of different countries. Learn more here.
Photos of Tim by AnnaGibbs.com
About Tim’s Travails: In this podcast/video sereis, IP attorney and author Tim Trainer introduce us to experts around the country who have insight into the law, international trade, and more, to help us better understand our world in 2025 and beyond.
Tim, himself, fits the bill for he worked for three decades for the US government and private law firms focusing on international trade, and has developed a deep understanding of global economics and politics.
Writing books is his passion. The author of seven books as of 2025, he has penned several non-fiction tomes, including his first book, Customs Enforcement of Intellectual Property Rights; the 15th edition was published in 2020. Thomson Reuters’ Aspatore Books published Tim’s next title in 2015, Potato Chips to Computer Chips: The War on Fake Stuff. Fiction was a genre he always wanted to try. In 2017, Pendulum Over the Pacific was released by Joshua Tree Publishing. “This political intrigue story is set in Tokyo and Washington, D.C., and centers on trade tensions between the U.S. and Japan in the late 1980s,” Tim explains. In 2023, his first series hit bookstores: The China Connection. In December 2024, he followed it with The China Factor.
Stay tuned for more episodes on InkandescentRadio.com and Inkandescent.tv, and of course, log in regularly for new blog entries and other information on Tim’s website, www.TimothyTrainer.com.
