Faculty Profile: Richard Sanders Jr.

Rick Sanders is currently General Counsel for the Software Freedom Conservancy, which promotes free and open source software through direct support of FOSS projects and enforcement of FOSS license agreements, among other ways. Mr. Sanders is a graduate of the Vanderbilt University School of Law. Previously, he was co-founder of Aaron & Sanders, PLLC (later Rick Sanders Law), an intellectual-property and technology boutique firm in Nashville, Tennessee. Before that, he was a partner in the litigation and intellectual-property practice groups at Waller Lansden Dortch & Davis, LLP (now Holland & Knight), in Nashville; and a litigation associate at the Silicon Valley office of Fenwick & West, LLP, and. He taught copyright law as an adjunct professor of law at Vanderbilt University School of Law from 2012 through 2014. He is a past Chair of the ABA Trademarks and the Internet Committee. He chaired the Nashville Bar Association's Intellectual Property Section in 2009. He also co-produces The Copyright Office Comes to Music City. Some of his previous publications include Overlapping Public and Private Spheres in Cyberspace: Fear, Exhilaration, the Internet and the Stored Communications Act, Understanding Developments in Cyberspace Law (Aspatore 2011); and Will Professor Nimmer's Change of Heart on File Sharing Matter?, Vanderbilt Journal of Entertainment and Technology Law, Summer 2013. He regularly gives presentations on technology and intellectual property in Nashville. He is the primary author of the blog The IP Breakdown at ipbreakdown.com.