A Leader in the $370B Character Licensing Boom

Character licensing is a $370 billion global industry — and most people have never heard of it. Bruce Berman sits down with David Born, CEO of Born Licensing and one of the world's leading experts in character and IP licensing for advertising. From placing Buddy the Elf in a UK supermarket ad to helping Geico license Angry Birds, David breaks down how brands use intellectual property to create instant emotional recognition in marketing campaigns. He explains how licensing deals are structured and valued, how licensors protect their brands from overexposure, and why smaller or emerging characters can actually offer better ROI than the hottest properties. David also shares how he built Born Licensing into one of the fastest-growing companies in Europe without any formal legal training — and why he thinks licensing is the most underrated business skill in the world.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

• Character licensing is a $370 billion global industry that most consumers interact with daily without realizing it.
• Brands license IP in advertising through multiple methods — placing characters in ads, using existing footage, recreating iconic scenes, or rotoscoping characters from original films.
• Licensing fees are determined by scope: territory, term, media channels, and usage type all factor into the final value of a deal.
• Top-tier licensors like Disney and Marvel are extremely selective about who they work with — protecting brand equity is a higher priority than volume of deals.
• Lesser-known or dormant characters can offer better commercial terms and faster approval processes, making them attractive for companies new to licensing.
• David Born built Born Licensing into an FT 1000 fastest-growing European company by filling a gap no one else was serving: helping ad agencies navigate IP licensing.
• Consumers will pay more for licensed products — the brand association adds perceived premium value that can offset royalty costs.
• AI presents both opportunities and challenges for the licensing world, with major licensors still uncertain about how to embrace it without compromising IP protection.
• Without formal legal training, David relies on deep industry experience, strong licensor relationships, and his lawyer sister for more complex legal questions.
• The best measure of a successful licensing campaign is authentic fan response — when fans love seeing their character used well, it's a win for everyone.

Learn more about CIPU: understandingip.org 
Born Licensing: bornlicensing.com 
Born to License Podcast: Search "Born to License" on your podcast app

Understanding IP Matters is produced by the Center for Intellectual Property Understanding (CIPU). Subscribe on your platform of choice or visit understandingip.org.

00:00 - Introduction & guest welcome 
02:13 - How character licensing entered David's life 
04:33 - Who listens to Understanding IP Matters 
05:15 - Types of IP licensing in advertising 
07:05 - How licensing deals are valued 
08:35 - Geico x Angry Birds case study 
09:08 - Measuring campaign success 
11:07 - Born Licensing's two business divisions 
12:39 - Major vs. lesser-known characters 
15:22 - Brand equity and saying no to deals 
17:29 - Operating without a legal background 
19:15 - Compensation and equity structures 
20:11 - FT 1000 fastest-growing company recognition 
21:39 - Filtering opportunities for licensors 
22:59 - Born to License podcast 
24:44 - Lessons for tech and content licensing 
25:29 - The cost and value of licensing 
27:40 - AI and the future of character licensing 
31:31 - Content authenticity and IP tracking 
32:32 - David's first awareness of IP
33:50 - Final thoughts for listeners

Understanding IP Matters is brought to you by the nonprofit Center for Intellectual Property Understanding (CIPU) with generous support from its partners and sponsors. The podcast provides leading innovators and experts the space to share their IP stories.

Subscribe on your platform of choice or visit understandingip.org.
To reach us: explore@understandingip.org

Transcript

David Born [0:00:00] Their phone rings and they see it's David Born calling. I'm doing the work to vet it for them, and I'm only coming to you with an opportunity that I believe you'll be really interested in.

Bruce Berman [0:00:14] Hello, I'm Bruce Berman, host of Understanding IP Matters, the acclaimed series that provides leading innovators and experts the space to share their IP story — the Good, the Bad, and the Incredible. Character licensing is everywhere, and it's based on intellectual property. The Marvel superhero on your coffee mug, the Disney pajamas your kids wear, that character in a memorable Super Bowl ad — most people experience licensing dozens of times a day but have no idea it exists. As part of a $370 billion global industry, I am pleased to have as my guest today David Born, the wunderkind of character licensing who is an expert in realizing intellectual property value by leveraging positive brand recognition. David is CEO of Born Licensing and produces the Born to License podcast — an excellent one, by the way. He is not a lawyer, but a lifelong purveyor of iconic movie and toy characters and their value. He is also adept at matching the right IP with the right marketing campaign. A committed overachiever, David is currently living in Brazil, will be moving to LA shortly. He ran a marathon in Amsterdam this past fall, I believe, and recently climbed to Everest Base Camp. Good morning, David. It's great to have you on the podcast today. I was glad we could grab you.

David Born [0:01:39] Good morning, Bruce. Well, thank you so much for having me. And what an introduction. I kind of think of all of that and think, wow, that is somewhat impressive. But for the record, I did run two marathons last year. The recent Rotterdam marathon I had to pull out of a week before because I had a foot injury, which was disappointing. I basically had to choose between doing the marathon — doing a third marathon — and going to Mount Everest Base Camp. My doctor said you can't do both, you have to do one. And I thought, I've already run two marathons, so I'm going to base camp. So that's what I did.

Bruce Berman [0:02:13] Great. Let's get right into it. So how did character licensing become such a huge industry, and how did it enter your life?

David Born [0:02:23] Yeah, well, I'm very fortunate to have been in the licensing world for almost 20 years now, and my story is very similar to a lot of other people in licensing in that I fell into licensing. I remember it was about 20 years ago, and I was 20 years old, and I wasn't really sure what to do with my career. I was in a job that I didn't really like, and I decided to just send my application, my resume, to a lot of different companies. And one was called Haven Licensing in Melbourne, Australia. I got a call for the interview, and I remember walking up to the building and standing at the front door and there was a big SpongeBob SquarePants looking back at me. And when I entered reception, there was a Spider-Man on the wall and a Dora the Explorer plush over here. And I was very confused. I didn't know — am I in a toy store? Am I at a job interview? Have I arrived at the right place? But that was my entry into licensing. I was very lucky to be given the job. I remember the person interviewing me started asking me questions about licensing and I had no idea what they were talking about. I winged the interview, managed to get the job, and then I started to experience what licensing was all about. So I've been doing that for 20 years now. And it is such an exciting industry to be a part of because it has a lot of different touch points — entertainment, retail, consumer products, e-commerce, advertising. As you mentioned at the start, Bruce, with the introduction: licensing is everywhere. That's one of my catchphrases. And it's everywhere you look, whether it's in your wardrobe, your refrigerator, at your local supermarket. And a lot of people don't know that it exists.

Bruce Berman [0:04:01] Were you a movie fan or TV fan in particular growing up? Did you remember these characters, or did you really learn about them as you started to work in the industry?

David Born [0:04:13] I was a big fan of characters when I was a kid. I loved watching Nickelodeon cartoons, loved watching Disney. I was a big fan of entertainment before I came into licensing. And I feel like that passion for entertainment has just made working in licensing so much more of a joy, because it's something that I enjoy on a daily basis.

Bruce Berman [0:04:33] Followers of Understanding IP Matters include entrepreneurs, content creators, inventors, investors, lawyers, educators, policymakers — all of whom are interested in capturing the value of intellectual property and encouraging better awareness on the part of businesses, creators, and investors. And that's part of what you do. You work with IP owners and advertising agencies to utilize licensing in marketing campaigns. Brands can incorporate well-known characters into their advertising strategies that provide instant recognition and positive associations. Are these primarily copyright and trademark deals that you're doing, or what are they based on?

David Born [0:05:15] A lot of the licensing agreements we sign in the advertising space can be quite different. So an advertiser or the ad agency might come to us and they'll say, you know, we would like to do a campaign around Cookie Monster, for example, or Batman, or so forth. And so our responsibility is to essentially go to the rights holders, to the licensors, and work through that process — help them understand the creative, help them understand what budget is available, the timing, and so forth. That's the most obvious part of the advertising space: getting a character and putting it in the ad. But there are actually a lot of different other ways that IP can be licensed in advertising. For example, you can use existing footage from a clip — say a really famous clip from The Wizard of Oz — in advertising as well. You can use thematic elements, so it could be recreating a really famous scene from a film. For example, Thelma and Louise, with Thelma and Louise driving off into the sunset — that iconic scene.

Bruce Berman [0:06:20] I think I've seen that one.

David Born [0:06:23] Yes. Yeah, we've done one of those as well. And then there's also — we did a really, really interesting campaign with Asda supermarkets in the UK a few years ago for their big Christmas campaign. It was with Buddy the Elf, the really famous character, everyone's favorite Christmas character. He essentially came back and appeared in an Asda store. But what was most interesting is that Will Ferrell didn't even have to get out of bed for it, because they rotoscoped Buddy the Elf out of the original film and placed him in an Asda supermarket. So there are all these really creative ways that you can use IP and characters in advertising.

Bruce Berman [0:07:05] Now, to structure licensing deals of the nature that you do, you need to value the assets. How do you typically do that? How do you know going in what to charge for something?

David Born [0:07:18] Yeah, a lot of it has to do with the scope. So one of the questions that we ask an ad agency or a brand that comes to us and says they want to do an advertising campaign with IP or with a character is we ask them for the scope. We say, what will the term be? Will you be using it for 12 months? What markets will it be? Will it be in the US? Will it be all of North America? Will it be a global campaign? What will the materials be? Will it be a 60-second ad that's going on TV? Will it be online only? What other media will there be? Will there be out-of-home, you know, billboards, and so forth? All of that kind of stuff is how the rights holders determine what value they should be putting on it. Now, some licensors have benchmarks where they will say, look, we will not allow our characters to be used unless you reach a certain level of license fee, otherwise we're not interested. Others have an appetite to really be in this space and they actually see it more as a marketing opportunity for their brand as well. So they love to see their character in an advertising campaign because it gets in front of a lot of people.

Bruce Berman [0:08:28] It can be a win-win for a major character because they're getting revenue and they're also expanding, extending the brand in some way.

David Born [0:08:35] Yeah, yeah. We had a really good example we did with Geico in the US where they licensed Angry Birds. And it was a really, really fun campaign. And Rovio, who are the owners of Angry Birds, they really loved that they were involved with this because sales of games and users of games spiked whenever that went on TV. So it was serving another purpose outside of them getting a license fee for lending their IP in an ad campaign — it was actually benefiting the game side of things as well. So that was a real benefit for them too.

Bruce Berman [0:09:08] Interesting. So how do you measure success? Is that not your purview? Is that the clients'? Or do you have some kind of KPI or criteria to measure if it's a successful campaign or not?

David Born [0:09:21] Yeah, I mean, usually that would sit with the ad agency or the brand. They will always have their KPIs of what they're trying to achieve. We usually get a sense of how successful it is based on results from platforms like System One, which measures how successful a campaign is, what certain KPIs are, metrics from audience measurements, and how effective an ad campaign essentially is. So often we can look at that and see that it has been a success. Most of the time, the agency and the client are trying to meet KPIs that they don't necessarily share with us. A good way for us to also determine if it's successful is just to hear what the fans are saying. That's something that's really important. And this is a really good point, Bruce, because with character licensing, you have to be really careful. You have to make sure that the creative is really authentic. Because there's nothing worse than putting something out there and fans come after you saying, "Batman wouldn't say that," or "That's not what this character would say," or "This character has sold out for this brand." So you've got to make sure that when you're looking for feedback, you look on YouTube, you're looking on social media — what are people saying? And I find that the best case studies we have are when the everyday person on YouTube and on social media is saying, "Oh, I love it. I love seeing this character. I hadn't seen this character for a while. I hadn't seen this character in this particular context." And they get really excited about it.

Bruce Berman [0:11:00] Interesting. Are you representing mostly licensors or licensees, or both?

David Born [0:11:07] It's a bit of both, to be honest. We have a few different business areas. So the advertising area I've been speaking about is our Born Licensing business. We have separate to that a division called Born to License, where we work with physical products and with companies that want to license IP on their physical product. That side of our company is called Born to License, and we essentially represent and work for the licensee. We've got over 35 clients in a whole bunch of different categories where we go and negotiate deals with Disney, with Warner Brothers, with Paramount, with Hello Kitty, with Hasbro, Mattel, and so forth, and help them with the process from start to finish.

Bruce Berman [0:11:48] Interesting. So how is Born Licensing compensated for representing a licensor? Is it on a project basis or a percentage success basis, or how is that typically structured — without giving away any state secrets?

David Born [0:12:04] Yeah, when we represent the licensor, it's a very typical kind of agency agreement where it's commission-based. So we represent the licensor, we go and sign deals, and they pay us a commission from the deal that's been agreed in advance. For the Born to License side of the business, we essentially represent the licensee and manage their portfolio. We have an ongoing retainer to keep the lights on — we have a really big team, so that's important. But then we're also paid a commission based on the licenses that we sign on their behalf as well.

Bruce Berman [0:12:39] Depending on who you're representing, what are the major differences between licensing a Disney or a Marvel character versus licensing a less well-known character for someone else? There's a different scale there, of course. Everyone wants the Disney and Marvel character, but maybe less so — you have to kind of sell them on a lesser character, perhaps. How do licensees determine the right ROI? And is there a sweet spot in known characters that may not be at the peak of their value curve — so not SpongeBob SquarePants or Bluey, because they're really hot, but maybe something lesser, and maybe that provides better value for a licensee. Do you get into those kinds of issues?

David Born [0:13:26] Oh, all the time. Absolutely. And you're right — there are some properties, some characters right now that are just constantly being requested. It doesn't matter what area of our business, whether it's the advertising side or the consumer product side — the name Bluey is coming up all the time. Hello Kitty is coming up all the time. Barbie is coming up all the time. A new one that's come through: K-Pop Demon Hunters — that's on Netflix, that's kind of the darling of licensing right now and it's really, really hot. So everybody's knocking on Netflix's door wanting K-Pop Demon Hunters. The licensors that have a really hot property — it's a great situation to have, but it's a problem because everyone's knocking on their door and they have to determine where they should be spending their time and where they're going to get the best return on investment. And that's part of our job — we need to go to them and help them really understand the opportunity and that it will be worth their while. Now there are other licensors out there with maybe lesser-known brands, or characters that haven't been in the spotlight for a little while, and they're wanting to get their character out there. Usually they'll be much more open, they'll give you more time, you'll have to jump through fewer hoops to get a license with that character, and the commercial terms may be more reasonable. They might support you more. If we have somebody that's new to licensing, those are the characters we'd suggest first. Because the big licensors typically don't like to work with a company that's never done licensing before — it's a much heavier lift. So they prefer to tell them, go and try licensing with someone else, once you've done a good job with it, come back to us, prove that you can respect IP and launch great licensed products, and then we'll talk.

Bruce Berman [0:15:22] Yeah. Brands are very protective — and they should be — of their franchise. I work with a fellow named Delphi Ferrano. He was president of Sony Signatures. They did a lot of brand licensing — he represented the Beatles, Godzilla, Madonna, the World Cup, soccer, all sorts of things. And he said to me, "Bruce, on a given week I get 50 offers — found money for the Beatles. Why should they say no? It's just going to be more income, they don't have to do anything except sign a release." But he refused 49 of them because it wasn't good for the brand. Very brand-conscious, very brand-equity-conscious. So the biggest brands, the most lucrative ones, are very careful about their reputation and how they use their likenesses.

David Born [0:16:09] Yeah, absolutely. And it doesn't matter if it's the advertising side or the consumer product side — there are very layered processes for approvals. That's the other thing a lot of the licensors are considering: their resources. Licensing teams are less and less resourced these days — it's a real problem. So what they are looking at is not only whether this opportunity is a good brand fit, but also whether they should be spending time with this company instead of another. Because particularly in the product development process, when you're talking about a physical product, you need to submit concepts, you need to submit pre-production samples, production samples, and that can take many, many months. And if that doesn't go well, it can be a really painful process for a licensor. The big licensing companies are dealing with thousands and thousands of submissions on a daily basis, and so it really starts to become a resource issue — particularly when you've got a lot of consolidation happening in our industry right now and they have to be extremely selective about who they're going to be spending time with.

Bruce Berman [0:17:29] Yeah, it's a real conundrum — or challenge, at least. David, I don't believe you have any formal legal training. Is that an impediment or a strength in negotiating deals? You know, Allen Klein, the infamous Beatles and Rolling Stones manager, was an accountant who couldn't pass the CPA exam, but he did extraordinary work for them. He wasn't a lawyer, but he could structure deals. What do you find?

David Born [0:17:56] Yeah. What I will tell you is that I've seen thousands of licensing agreements in my time, and I can read a licensing agreement and understand what it means very, very easily. But you're right — I don't have a legal background. So often when we have a client with questions that go beyond typical commercial terms that we can provide guidance on, I always encourage them to seek advice from an IP lawyer, which is usually fine. We don't have to do any contract drafting or anything like that. The licensor will typically always do the contract draft. We'll facilitate the process between the two parties and make sure that they're comfortable. Often we'll facilitate a call between two legal teams, and I'll sit on the call and chair it and make sure that they're both getting on and we can end up on the same page. So I've been able to build the business I've built and have success without necessarily having a legal background. The one benefit I do have that maybe others in my position don't have is that my older sister is a lawyer. And so whenever there is a really curly thing that comes up and I just need a bit of advice, I'll give Emma a call and just say, "What do you think about this?" So that's a bit of my secret that I can lean on.

Bruce Berman [0:19:15] Do you ever — or does Born Licensing ever — take an equity position in a deal, or are you basically just paid for the work you do?

David Born [0:19:27] We do get a commission, sort of based on royalties and money that's paid to the licensor. So even though it's not an equity position per se, there is an upside for us. If our client has enormous success selling their product and they sell a lot more than expected, then there is an upside for us, the same way there is an upside for the licensor. But it's the flip side as well — if it doesn't go as well as planned, then there isn't really an upside for us. So it's a great way to incentivize myself and the team to throw everything we can at every product launch, every single client we're working with, because if it really does well, that benefits everybody.

Bruce Berman [0:20:11] Born Licensing, I believe, was established about 2014, and in 2021 it was featured in the top 100 of the Financial Times FT 1000 fastest-growing companies in Europe. I believe that's correct.

David Born [0:20:24] Yes.

Bruce Berman [0:20:25] What was the key to your fast track?

David Born [0:20:27] Yeah, well, I think the way they measure it is they take a base year and then a few years later they take your current year and figure out the CAGR based on that. One of the benefits in my case was that the base year I was really just starting up in the UK — I had started my business in Australia, moved to the UK, we set up the business there, and it was kind of a very early year. And things really exploded for us. So we had three years of really exponential growth. We did go from a base year where we were just starting out to a really successful year. And I think we grew so quickly because the demand was there. There was no one out there helping ad agencies license characters and IP in advertising. So we would go and meet with agencies and they'd be like, "Oh, there's finally a solution." Because previously they'd been trying to reach out to the Disneys and the Warner Brothers of the world, but they didn't know who to contact, they couldn't get through the switchboard, and they'd end up just giving up. So I think one of the reasons we grew so quickly was because we provided a solution where there was previously no solution available.

Bruce Berman [0:21:39] Interesting. And you're probably respectful of the major licensors — you don't want to waste their time with an inappropriate offer. You kind of help save them time and aggravation, it seems.

David Born [0:21:52] Yeah, absolutely. And that's a key part of what we do. We're always bearing in mind how under-resourced the licensors are. We have a very clear policy of when we actually put something in front of a licensor, because we don't want to waste their time. The truth is that if I went to Disney or Warner Brothers or Hasbro with every single inquiry we had, I'd be annoying them with all of these kind of — you know — opportunities. We like to work on a project, get it to a point where we think it's probably got more than a 50% chance of actually happening, and then we'll bother the licensor with it. And they really respect that because they're just so busy. So they now know —

Bruce Berman [0:22:33] So you're like a filter for them in a way.

David Born [0:22:37] Exactly. And what's important is that they now know when an email comes from David Born, or when their phone rings and they see it's David Born calling, they know that I've got an exciting opportunity for them. And that's how I've tried to build the business — so they know I'm doing the work to vet it for them, and I'm only coming to them with an opportunity that I believe they'll be really interested in.

Bruce Berman [0:22:59] David, you recently opened Born Legal, and you've been presenting the Born to License podcast for a while now. It's an analysis of character licensing news, which I have been enjoying. I think it's really interestingly done — it's sort of a business podcast, short and to the point, pointing people in the right direction as to what's hot in that industry. It's quite interesting to me. I'm kind of a novice when it comes to character licensing, but not licensing. You're an adept podcaster — incisive without being long-winded. How did you get involved in podcasting?

David Born [0:23:33] One of the things I'm very grateful for is that before I discovered licensing, I studied commercial radio at university in Australia. And so while I was doing that, I learned all of the things you need to do as it relates to recording, radio editing, and all of that kind of stuff. So I'm very lucky that I'm able to continue using those skills. In the last 18 months I've been really trying to put myself out there as more of a thought leader in the licensing space, but equally to make licensing more accessible. Because the truth is, even though licensing is all around us — licensing is everywhere, as I've said — a lot of people don't understand how that Mickey Mouse T-shirt at Walmart got there. And so what I'm trying to do with the podcast, and a bunch of different projects I'm working on, is really unlock the world of licensing so that people start to understand how it works. Because it is a really exciting industry — it's where entrepreneurship and consumer products and entertainment and a lot of different sectors collide.

Bruce Berman [0:24:44] Yes, it's very exciting. Are there lessons from character licensing that can be applied to product, technology, or content licensing, do you think?

David Born [0:24:54] Yeah, absolutely. Licensing in general can be translated across every single industry. We've talked about advertising, we've talked about consumer products, but it can also be translated across tech and new technologies. Licensing is such a versatile thing that when new things come up — whether it's AI-related or NFTs or anything like that — when new technology and new innovation comes through, licensing always finds its way there.

Bruce Berman [0:25:29] Yeah. If there's value there, there are people who want it. And what people don't understand often in the patent world and licensing world is that it costs money to license, but you make money from licensing. So if AT&T has to pay a premium for the patents on 1-800 numbers — call center numbers — they paid what might have seemed like a small amount, but it added up to a lot of money. And they made money from owning that patent or having access to it. Same thing with a character — you're not doing it just for entertainment purposes, you're doing it for business purposes.

David Born [0:26:07] Yeah, there are so many benefits to licensing characters. If we focus back on consumer products for a moment — one of the conversations I have with our clients and all of our prospects is that consumers will pay more for a licensed product. They see it as premium, because it is. And so what they can actually do — yes, licensing costs money, you have to pay royalties, there are minimum guarantees involved, and so forth — but a lot of consumer products companies are able to increase the price of the product just a little bit to cover those costs, so that they're not eating into their margin. Another thing we talk about is that there are a lot of benefits that aren't necessarily immediately obvious but are incredibly valuable. We've got one of our clients — they're an Australian client called Hippo Blue, and they do personalized products for children. They have a Disney license, they recently signed with Warner Brothers for Batman, and recently signed with Paramount for Paw Patrol. They're having huge success. And one of the most exciting things for them is that they now see their Hippo Blue name next to Disney, next to Star Wars, next to Marvel. That long-term brand benefit goes well beyond just selling the bento boxes and drink bottles — one of which I've got right here in front of me that I'm drinking out of at the moment. There are so many benefits to licensing beyond the immediate uplift in sales. It can completely transform a business.

Bruce Berman [0:27:40] So this brings us — we're running a little low on time — to an important question which we sort of touched upon earlier. Artificial intelligence: creating, recreating, manipulating other people's images and so forth. What's your take on AI and the character licensing world currently?

David Born [0:27:59] Yeah. AI is moving at a pace that we are really struggling to keep up with, and it's a very sensitive topic in the licensing world. I think the licensing world is starting to embrace AI in ways to help with efficiency and processes, but I still feel like AI is kind of the Wild West. And there's a lot of doubt around how the licensing world can bring AI in to assist without opening a Pandora's box. A lot of that is around entertainment creating IP — there's so much sensitivity in Hollywood about AI and how their IP will potentially be impacted by its introduction. I'm really trying to pay attention to how AI will transform our business. It was very interesting when Disney signed a billion-dollar deal with OpenAI last year and then about a month ago completely backed out. I was really keen to see where that relationship was going to go, because in our industry, if Disney does something, it kind of gives a permission slip for everybody else to do it. And so I thought, okay, the floodgates are open, everybody's going to get involved with AI — what does that mean for our business? And then that was reversed. I'm not entirely sure of all the circumstances, but I think it's because OpenAI is no longer focusing on Sora as a product. So we sort of go back to square one as far as how the Disneys of the world are going to be embracing AI. But I will absolutely be paying attention.

Bruce Berman [0:29:54] It's so easy to grab images and manipulate them, and everything seems to be available for free. You know, it started with the internet and now with AI, it seems like everything is fair use — and it's not. But we can monitor it, and I think there will be more monitoring of those things — technology and characters as well. It's not like the actors are saying you can't use our image. They just want to be paid for it and want to know when it's being done. I think that's inevitable — that images will be protected and coveted, whether brands or characters. Using them inappropriately and without compensation — that's really the issue. I think once they get a handle on that with technology, it'll be helpful, at least in my opinion.

David Born [0:30:37] I think that's one of the biggest challenges with where we go with AI, because these licensors and brand owners are so protective of their IP. A brand like Marvel — we know that Disney purchased Marvel for $4 billion, and it's worth so much more than that now. They have so many processes in place to make sure that nobody is using their IP in a way that could be detrimental to the brand. But when you start to introduce AI, how do you put parameters in place? That's the question for licensors: can we work with AI while still protecting our brand, while still making sure there are parameters in which our characters can appear so that they don't do anything that will offend people and potentially ruin the brand?

Bruce Berman [0:31:31] Right. Or undermine it in any way, or devalue it. And I think transparency has a lot to do with it. There's a Content Authenticity Initiative headed by Adobe, and there are a number of major content creators and distributors involved in it. They're embedding in images — in photographs that are taken — a sort of watermark, for lack of a better term, but one that can't be removed. You can monitor and track those images across their lifespan and kind of know who's using them and whether you're being compensated when they're used inappropriately. I think we'll see more of that kind of technology apply to various levels of AI. People want to know what's going on, and currently we don't know too much about what's happening with AI. We like to ask David: what was your first awareness of IP rights? Was it positive, negative, or neutral? When were you first aware of the notion of intellectual property?

David Born [0:32:32] I think it's a great question. When I was a child — actually, on the day that I was born — I was given a Care Bear. It was Swift Heart Rabbit, which is one of the Care Bears cousins. And I was given that toy, and it was like my favorite childhood toy. I never really knew that my favorite toy was a licensed toy. I never really knew that there were so many other versions of that character, and that it was from a TV show, until I was much older. I think it was when I was much older that I realized that toy was actually from a TV show, and something sort of clicked — that there was this world of IP that existed that I didn't realize. But it all really came together when I was sitting down in that interview for my first licensing role and they started to explain to me what licensing was. I thought back to my childhood toy, that it was a Care Bear, that it was also on a TV show. Oh, okay — so that's licensing. It took me that long to really get my head around what IP was all about.

Bruce Berman [0:33:42] Sure, sure. What thought would you like to leave our listeners and viewers with today?

David Born [0:33:50] Well, I think one of the things I've said many times is that licensing is everywhere. And I always encourage people to have a look around their house, and they'll be so surprised as to how quickly they find something that is licensed — whether it's going to their supermarket or just looking around. You'll be so surprised by how prominent licensing is, because once you realize that licensing is all around us, you really can't avoid it. It's absolutely everywhere.

Bruce Berman [0:34:23] Great. Well, thank you so much for your time. I know you're busy — I saw your agenda in the email and I don't know how you do it. You're going to be in several different continents in the next few weeks.

David Born [0:34:36] Yeah, I do love to travel, both for business and for leisure. If I'm in the same place for longer than a month, I start to get bored, to be honest.

Bruce Berman [0:34:46] Well, thanks for taking time for us. I learned a lot, and I think our listeners did as well. Thank you. We'll have to have you back on again in the future.

David Born [0:34:56] Thanks for having me. Looking forward to speaking with you again soon.

Bruce Berman [0:35:00] Hello, I'm Bruce Berman, the host of Understanding IP Matters, the critically acclaimed series that provides leading innovators and experts the space to share their IP story — the Good, the Bad, and the Incredible. Understanding IP Matters is brought to you by the nonprofit Center for Intellectual Property Understanding, with the generous support of its partners and sponsors. Subscribe on the platform of your choice or email us at explore@understandingip.org. Content provided is for informational purposes only and does not represent the views of CIPU or its affiliates. This episode was produced for CIPU by Podsonic. Thank you for listening.