About Dave
David S. Levine is an Associate Professor of Law at Elon University School of Law and an Affiliate Scholar at the Center for Internet and Society (CIS) at Stanford Law School. For 2014-2017, Dave is a Visiting Fellow at Princeton University’s Center for Information Technology Policy.
Dave’s scholarship, which has been published in a variety of law reviews including Florida, North Carolina and Stanford Online, focuses on the operation of intellectual property law at the intersection of technology and public life, specifically information flows in the lawmaking and regulatory process and intellectual property law’s impact on public and private secrecy, transparency and accountability. He is an acknowledged leader in trade secret law advocacy, and has spoken about his work in numerous venues, from the American Political Science Association annual meeting to the Information Society Project at Yale Law School, and internationally. His current projects focus on information systems and access to robotics information.
Active in policy analysis, he has made presentations to the negotiators at several negotiating rounds for the Trans Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPP), testified before the Library of Congress, briefed the Senate Judiciary Committee staff on trade secret law, co-authored influential law professors’ letters regarding the TPP, Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA), Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) and Defend Trade Secrets Act (DTSA), and was a member of the North Carolina Mining and Energy Commission’s Protection of Trade Secret and Proprietary Information Study Group that was tasked with writing the state’s hydraulic fracturing regulations. Having been interviewed and quoted in many media outlets, from NPR to the Los Angeles Times, Dave is a regular contributor to Slate, and blogs at American University Law School’s Program on Information Justice and Intellectual Property blog infojustice.org and Princeton’s Center for Information Technology Policy blog freedomtotinker.com.
He was previously a resident fellow at CIS, legislative aide in the New York State Assembly, assistant corporation counsel for the City of New York and in private practice in Manhattan where he worked for entertainment industry clients. He holds a BS in industrial and labor relations from Cornell University and a JD from Case Western Reserve University School of Law.
Scholarship
Publications on Trade Secret Law
Trade Secrets and Climate Change: Uncovering Secret Solutions to the Problem of Greenhouse Gas Emissions, Research Handbook on Intellectual Property and Climate Change, Chapter 17, (Edward Elgar, 2016) (with Sharon Sandeen).
Here Come the Trade Secret Trolls, 71 Wash. & Lee L. Rev. Online 230 (2015) (with Sharon Sandeen).
The People’s Trade Secrets?, 18 Mich. Telecomm. & Tech. L. Rev. 61 (2011) (invited to discuss article at Yale Law School’s Information Society Project and University of North Carolina’s Mary Junck Research Colloquium).
Secrecy and Unaccountability: Trade Secrets in Our Public Infrastructure, 59 Fl. L. Rev. 135 (2007) (to be republished in full in forthcoming volume entitled Trade Secrets and Undisclosed Information (Edward Elgar 2014), cited in articles published in the Cornell, Duke, Iowa, Northwestern, Notre Dame and Stanford Law Reviews and Yale Law Journal, and quoted in Elizabeth Rowe and Sharon Sandeen, Cases and Materials on Trade Secret Law (West 2012)).
The Impact of Trade Secrecy on Public Transparency, in The Law and Theory of Trade Secrecy: A Handbook of Contemporary Research, Rochelle C. Dreyfuss and Katherine J. Strandburg, eds., Edward Elgar Publishing (2011) (invited to contribute to book focused on current issues in trade secret law and theory).
What Can the Uniform Trade Secrets Act Learn From the Bayh-Dole Act?, 33 Hamline L. Rev. 615 (2010) (invited to contribute to symposium issue marking 30th anniversary of the Uniform Trade Secrets Act).
Publications on Cyberlaw, Information Systems and/or International IP Law
The Social Layer of Freedom of Information Law, 90 N. C. L. Rev. 1687 (2012) (invited symposium issue on social media and the law).
Bring in the Nerds: Secrecy, National Security, and the Creation of International Intellectual Property Law, 30 Cardozo Arts & Ent. L. J. 105 (2012) (invited lead article for one of two panels at Spring 2012 symposium celebrating 30th anniversary of the Journal)
- Annemarie Bridy, Copyright Policymaking as Procedural Democratic Process: A Discourse-Theoretical Perspective on ACTA, SOPA, and PIPA, 30 Cardozo Arts & Ent. L. J. 153 (2012) (responding to article).
- Mary LaFrance, Graduated Response by Industry Compact: Piercing the Black Box, 30 Cardozo Arts & Ent. L. J. 165 (2012) (responding to article).
Intellectual Property Law Without Secrets, in The Law of the Future and the Future of Law: Volume II, Sam Muller, Stavros Zouridis, Morly Frishman and Laura Kistemaker, eds., Torkel Opsahl, The Hague (2012) (invited).
Don’t Break the Internet, 64 Stan. L. Rev. Online 34 (2011) (with Mark Lemley of Stanford Law School and David G. Post of Temple Law School; extensive media coverage and impact discussed in Yochai Benkler et al., Social Mobilization and the Networked Public Sphere: Mapping the SOPA-PIPA Debate at 28, 33 (July 2013)).
Transparency Soup: The ACTA Negotiating Process and “Black Box” Lawmaking, 26 Am. U. Intl. L. Rev. 811 (2011) (part of volume dedicated to analysis of the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA)).
Other Publications
What Can We Do on Monday to Improve Our Teaching?, 17 Chapman L. Rev 29 (2013) (invited symposium).
The Potentially Perilous Cease-and-Desist Letter, 16-3 N. Y. S. Bar Assoc. Entertainment, Arts and Sports L. J. 16 (Fall/Winter 2005).
When Money Kills: an Overview of the Status of Internet Gambling after September 11, 2001, 12-3 N. Y. S. Bar Assoc. Entertainment, Arts and Sports L. J. 61 (Fall/Winter 2001).
The “Deep Freeze” in the Lower Federal Court Confirmation Process, 3 Holy Cross J. of L. and Pub. Pol. 263 (1998).
Media
In addition to his scholarship, Dave founded, hosts and produces a weekly technology and intellectual property law interview radio show entitled Hearsay Culture (that’s where you are now!) Hearsay Culture is heard on KZSU-FM (Stanford University), and can be found as a podcast on iTunes, CIS’ website, and the website for the show, hearsayculture.com (which is where you are now). Since its founding in May 2006, Hearsay Culture has received very favorable (and unsolicited) reviews on blogs and technology websites including ZDNet (“Some of the best discussion I’ve heard to date (and certainly recently) about the economics of intellectual property in the technological era . . .”), Concurring Opinions (listing the show as one of the author’s six favorite podcasts of 2007), and Technology Liberation Front (reviewing interview with Prof. Richard Epstein, and author noting that it is “one of [his] favorite podcasts”).
Additionally, in December 2008, Hearsay Culture was listed in the American Bar Association (“ABA”) Journal’s Blawg 100 of 2008, as one of the “top 100 best Web sites by lawyers, for lawyers.” Specifically, Hearsay Culture was selected by the editors as one of the top five in the new podcast category. Hearsay Culture was also listed as one of 10 podcasts that are “essential for legal professionals” in an October 10, 2008 article by Robert J. Ambrogi of Law Technology News entitled “Ten Legal Podcasts to Keep You Informed.”
Dave is a regular contributor to Slate, and blogs at American University Law School’s Program on Information Justice and Intellectual Property blog infojustice.org and Princeton’s Center for Information Technology Policy blog freedomtotinker.com. Dave has been quoted in articles in newspapers including the Los Angeles Times and appeared on CNBC, spoken at many intellectual property and cyberlaw conferences, and testified before the Library of Congress’ National Recording Preservation Board.
More information can be found here.
Education and Professional Experience
After earning a bachelor of science degree from Cornell University’s New York State School of Industrial and Labor Relations in 1994, Dave was the Legislative Aide for the Hon. Sandy Galef, New York State Assemblywoman; additionally, he was the volunteer Field Director for the New York State chapter of Concord Coalition, with which he remains involved. During law school, Dave was a summer extern for the Hon. Adlai S. Hardin, United States Bankruptcy Judge in the Southern District of New York.
Upon graduating from Case Western Reserve University School of Law, Dave practiced law in Manhattan as an associate in the litigation departments of Windels Marx Lane & Mittendorf LLP (formerly Lane & Mittendorf LLP) and thereafter Pryor Cashman Sherman & Flynn LLP. At Pryor Cashman, Dave worked on a variety of cases in the intellectual property and technology litigation fields for several entertainment and fashion industry clients. Dave was also an Assistant Corporation Counsel for the New York City Law Department, Office of the Corporation Counsel. In the transition from practice to teaching, Dave was a Resident Fellow at CIS.
Contact
Dave can be reached at dave@hearsayculture.com.
Dave finds it a bit obnoxious to write in the third person, but finds it stranger still to keep saying “I” into the ether. Thus, Dave will choose, from these two bad options, the third person.
