Alexandra Lippman is a PhD candidate in anthropology at the University of California Irvine, who works at the intersection of media, sound studies, legal anthropology, and Latin American studies. Funded in part by the National Science Foundation, she spent 13 months conducting fieldwork in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. She is writing her dissertation, Piracy, Peer-acy, and Payola: Music, Technology, and Remaking Intellectual Property in Brazil, which explores how globalizing alternative intellectual property practices impact creativity, media access, and music.