lystn

This week's episode examines who owns the selfie taken at the Oscars, why one food truck is facing criminal charges, how Getty Images is making some of its photos free, and a teen's Facebook post that may cost her dad $80,000. Nasir and Matt also field questions about who owns work created by an employer's staff, what to look for in a commercial lease, and whether to go to small claims court for your customer/client's unpaid bill. Full Podcast Transcript NASIR: And I realized that we always introduce ourselves but we already have an intro. So, I don’t even know why we even do that. It’s like Andy Richter introduces Conan O’Brien and he walks in and says, “I’m Conan O’Brien and this is the…” whatever the show is called. MATT: It’s because, last week, it was just me. So, sometimes, it is different. NASIR: Oh, that’s true, that’s true. Well, let’s start our show. What do we have, Matt? MATT: Welcome back, first of all. It’s good to have you back after last week it was just me. We’ll see if our chemistry is still here after taking a couple of weeks off. NASIR: I know. I definitely missed the podcast. But I think last week’s episode – and I’m not even being funny about it – it was I think our best episode. Obviously, it was a compilation of our best moments but it was truly a really nice review of the last twenty episodes. MATT: It was actually pretty fun going back and listening to them again too because there’s a lot of stuff that I forgot that we even talked about. It was a nice little stroll down memory lane. NASIR: We’re not that old yet! MATT: Well, for the podcast, yeah. All right, enough of that. We’ll get into the first story we have for this week. This has gotten a lot of publicity. I’m sure anyone that’s been breathing, I guess, in this last week has heard about this selfie that was taken at the Oscars. I actually didn’t see the Oscars. Well, I take that back. I saw the end of it but I didn’t see this part. NASIR: Well, it’s funny. I probably watched five minutes and this is the only part that I saw. So, I’m ready. MATT: Good. Well, Ellen was the host and I guess she did this thing where she did a lot of crowd work and she went into the crowd and she had a phone and – I guess you can correct me if I’m wrong on exactly how this happened – she handed to Bradley Cooper and they took a selfie of a bunch of people. It looks like ten of them and a bunch of high-profile celebrities. This picture, she put it up on Twitter and, the last time I checked, it had over 3.3 million retweets which is just shattering whatever the previous record was. I think the previous record was Obama’s tweet when he said, “Four more years.” I could be wrong on that. NASIR: I didn’t even realize that it gained so much popularity. In fact, when I saw it, it was almost awkward because Ellen’s holding one of those huge Samsung phones so it was basically a Samsung ad placement. And then, she’s taking pictures and then having people get together. The picture turned out nice but, for me, it was just a very awkward moment when, like, celebrities didn’t know what was going on. MATT: It doesn’t look like they were on it either because their expression looked pretty natural. But they’re saying, “Who owns this photo?” The story that’s coming out this week is Bradley Cooper, since he was the photographer, he owns the photo, according to copyright law. NASIR: Yeah, and if you think about it, Ellen is the one that is the owner of the phone – well, supposedly; it may not even be hers. And then, she hands it to Mr. Bradley Cooper who is apparently an actor. He’s the one who actually takes the photo. And so, this is equivalent to a photographer that – I don’t know – rents a camera or borrows a camera and goes out for a photoshoot. Who owns the photo? Is it the participants? Is it the photographer? Is it the owner of the camera? Very classic situation but we already know the answer. MATT: According to the law, it’s Bradley Cooper.