Art historian turned IP attorney. I see the same extraction patterns in 17th-century enclosure movements and 21st-century AI training.

I'm an intellectual property attorney with a J.D. and Ph.D. in Art History from Duke University. I founded Implement Legal to provide copyright, trademark, and business acquisition counsel for creative businesses generating $100K-$3M annually.

My dissertation examined appropriation art and fair use doctrine from the 1990s through 2010s, studying the work of artists including Richard Prince, Sherrie Levine, and Jeff Koons. That research proved prescient: the 2023 Supreme Court decision in Andy Warhol Foundation v. Goldsmith validated my central argument that transformative use doctrine enables extraction by powerful artists from working creators treated as raw materials.

Now tech companies deploy the same legal arguments to justify training AI on copyrighted works without permission or compensation. Fair use doctrine, originally crafted to protect criticism and scholarship, has become a tool for capitalist extraction from shared creative resources.

Before practicing law full-time, I ran museums and arts organizations including the Black Mountain College Museum + Arts Center. That operational experience informs my legal practice: I understand creative business models from having operated them. I know what it's like when your gallery owner is also your friend, when your collaborator becomes your client, when the person across the negotiating table is someone you'll see at every opening for the next decade.