Who Owns Your Thoughts?

Years ago, the great Dorothy Parker said that the movie business was the only business where the assets went home at night….Well that may have had a ring a truth then, but today in a world where intellectual property and human capital are what makes our economy tick, it seems that the assets always go home at night.

And what they do, what they think about, and what they conceive of when they are home, opens a minefield of issues that are legal, cultural and human. Add to these issues the global world where work is 24/7, where nomadic work patterns are the subject of a NY Times Magazine cover story, and where a single idea can be worth billions and can change the world, the consequences of these issues are enormous.

Distinguished law professor Orly Lobel in You Don't Own Me: How Mattel v. MGA Entertainment Exposed Barbie's Dark Side, tells a story of the toy business that is both compelling in its own right and emblematic of the future of law and work.

My conversation with Orly Lobel: