David B. Pakman

Last updated

David B. Pakman
David B. Pakman (2015).jpg
Pakman in 2015
Born (1969-01-29) January 29, 1969 (age 55)
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, U.S.
Occupation(s)Internet entrepreneur and venture capitalist

David B. Pakman (born January 29, 1969) is an American businessman and venture capitalist. He is managing director at CoinFund, a blockchain-focused investment firm founded in 2015 with the goal of shaping the global transition to digital assets and decentralized finance. He focuses on early stage venture investments in all sectors of crypto. Previously, he was a Partner in Venrock's New York City office focused on early stage venture investing in consumer and enterprise internet companies. His investments include Dstillery, Smartling, Simbe Robotics, Dapper Labs/Flow/CryptoKitties, Rarible and Running Tide Technologies. He led the Series A and B rounds and sat on the board of Dollar Shave Club which was acquired by Unilever for $1 billion. He was a board member at Crunchyroll (acquired by The Chernin Group) and led Venrock's investment in Klout (acquired by Lithium Technologies).

Contents

Education and personal life

Pakman is a graduate of and a former member of the Board of Overseers [1] at University of Pennsylvania's School of Engineering and Applied Science with a BSE (1991) degree in Computer Science Engineering and is an avid musician and songwriter.

In 2020, he was the drummer for When In Rome II on the first half of the SiriusXM Totally 80s Live Tour with The Motels and Bow Wow Wow and has played more dates with the band in 2021.

At Penn, Pakman's senior design project advisor was David J. Farber. He was the co-founder of Penn Engineering's Dining Philosophers, [2] the computer science club that, at the time, was Penn's chapter of the Association for Computing Machinery or the ACM.

Career

In 1991, Pakman joined Apple Inc.'s System Software Product Marketing group and later co-created Apple's Music Group. There he co-founded the Macintosh New York Music Festival and co-produced the then-largest industry webcast to-date, the 1997 GRAMMY Awards.

In 2003, Pakman joined Dimensional Associates, a private equity firm focused on acquiring distressed digital media companies. The firm bought eMusic from Vivendi Universal and Pakman became the COO. In 2005, Pakman became the CEO and grew eMusic to become, at that time, the world's leading digital retailer of independent music, second only to iTunes in number of downloads sold. In the three years that Pakman ran it, he grew the business by more than 850%, from $7M in revenues to more than $68M. Pakman transformed the business from an obscure also-ran with 50,000 subscribers to the second largest digital music retailer in the world, with more than 400,000 subscribers and more than 12% market share (according to the NPD Group).

Prior to joining eMusic, Pakman was co-founder and president of business development and public policy at Myplay, Inc., the company he co-founded in 1999 in Redwood City, California with Doug Camplejohn that introduced the "digital music locker" and pioneered the locker category. In 2001, Myplay was sold to Bertelsmann's ecommerce Group [3] where Pakman became the SVP of Corporate Development and Public Policy. Before Myplay, he was vice president at N2K Entertainment, which created the first digital music download service [4]

Pakman served on the Board of NARM (National Association of Recording Merchandisers). He was formerly a board member of DiMA (Digital Media Association) in Washington, D.C. and co-chair of its Music Licensing Committee. He has testified before Congress [5] and the NTIA [6] about the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), guest-lectured at The Wharton School and the School of Engineering and Applied Science at the University of Pennsylvania, Harvard, Columbia and MIT, and has spoken at hundreds of conferences and public events. In May 2007 he delivered the Commencement Address at Penn Engineering's 251st Commencement. [7] He was a member of Penn Engineering's Board of Overseers from 2007 to 2010.

Pakman also served on the Board of Trustees of ITHAKA, a not-for-profit organization dedicated to helping the academic community take full advantage of rapidly advancing information and networking technologies and holds a board seat with the New York Venture Capital Association. In September 2012, Pakman joined Jazz at Lincoln Center's Digital Advisory Council. [8] Pakman was a board member of POTS (Part Of The Solution), a "One-Stop-Shop" in the Bronx helping low-income individuals and families move from crisis to stability, and ultimately self-sufficiency. In June 2015, Pakman became a Trustee at St. Luke's School (Connecticut), a secular, college-preparatory day school in New Canaan, Connecticut for grades 5 through 12 and served there until June 2022.

On November 29, 2012, Pakman testified in front of the U. S. House Judiciary Committee Subcommittee on Intellectual Property, Competition and the Internet [9] regarding the state of internet radio licensing.

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Napster</span> On-line peer-to-peer file sharing software

Napster was a peer-to-peer (P2P) file sharing application primarily associated with digital audio file distribution. Founded by Shawn Fanning and Sean Parker, the platform originally launched on June 1, 1999. Audio shared on the service was typically encoded in the MP3 format. As the software became popular, the company encountered legal difficulties over copyright infringement. Napster ceased operations in 2001 after losing multiple lawsuits and filed for bankruptcy in June 2002.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bertelsmann</span> German multinational media, services and education company

The Bertelsmann SE & Co. KGaA, commonly known as Bertelsmann, is a German private multinational conglomerate corporation based in Gütersloh, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. It is one of the world's largest media conglomerates and is also active in the service sector and education.

A key generator (key-gen) is a computer program that generates a product licensing key, such as a serial number, necessary to activate for use of a software application. Keygens may be legitimately distributed by software manufacturers for licensing software in commercial environments where software has been licensed in bulk for an entire site or enterprise, or they may be developed and distributed illegitimately in circumstances of copyright infringement or software piracy.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Matt Blaze</span> American researcher

Matt Blaze is an American researcher who focuses on the areas of secure systems, cryptography, and trust management. He is currently the McDevitt Chair of Computer Science and Law at Georgetown University, and is on the board of directors of the Tor Project.

Napster is a music streaming service based in Seattle, Washington, United States. Until 2016, the service was known domestically as Rhapsody before rebranding as Napster, the same name brand that was used by Roxio's Napster.

Super RTL is a German free-to-air television network owned by RTL Deutschland. The channel originally launched in 1995 as a joint venture between RTL Group predecessor company CLT-UFA and Disney's Buena Vista International Television Investments division.

Thomas Hesse is a media and digital media executive and entrepreneur. He is the founder of Dreamstage Inc. and Consonance Investments LLC. He was previously the President of Global Digital Business & US Sales/ Distribution for Sony Music Entertainment and president of Corporate Development and New Businesses as well as Member of the Executive Board of Bertelsmann.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">University of Pennsylvania School of Engineering and Applied Science</span> Engineering school of the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

The University of Pennsylvania School of Engineering and Applied Science is the undergraduate and graduate engineering school of the University of Pennsylvania, a private research university in Philadelphia. The school offers programs that emphasize hands-on study of engineering fundamentals while encouraging students to leverage the educational offerings of the broader University. Engineering students can also take advantage of research opportunities through interactions with Penn’s School of Medicine, School of Arts and Sciences, and the Wharton School.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tudou</span> Chinese video-sharing website headquartered in Shanghai

Tudou, Inc. is a Chinese video-sharing website headquartered in Shanghai, China, where users can upload, view and share video clips. Tudou went live on April 15, 2005 and by September 2007 served over 55 million videos each day.

Howard Blumenthal is an American television and new media producer, author, educator, and executive. Born and raised in New York City and nearby suburbs, he is the son of author and Concentration producer Norm Blumenthal, and the grandson of radio and music retailer Harry Blumenthal. He is best known as the co-creator and producer of the Peabody Award winning PBS series, Where in the World Is Carmen Sandiego?

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Digital Millennium Copyright Act</span> United States copyright law

The Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) is a 1998 United States copyright law that implements two 1996 treaties of the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO). It criminalizes production and dissemination of technology, devices, or services intended to circumvent measures that control access to copyrighted works. It also criminalizes the act of circumventing an access control, whether or not there is actual infringement of copyright itself. In addition, the DMCA heightens the penalties for copyright infringement on the Internet. Passed on October 12, 1998, by a unanimous vote in the United States Senate and signed into law by President Bill Clinton on October 28, 1998, the DMCA amended Title 17 of the United States Code to extend the reach of copyright, while limiting the liability of the providers of online services for copyright infringement by their users.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">BMG Rights Management</span> International music company

BMG Rights Management GmbH is an international music company based in Berlin, Germany. It combines the activities of a music publisher and a record label.

Klaus Hommels is a German venture capitalist. He focuses on early and growth-stage investments and has founded his own venture capital fund by the name of Lakestar, through which he has been investing mainly in digital businesses. He has been invested in Facebook, Skype and Xing; other examples are Klarna and Revolut.

<i>Capitol Records, Inc. v. MP3Tunes, LLC</i> 2011 US legal case

Capitol Records, Inc. v. MP3tunes, LLC is a 2011 case from the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York concerning copyright infringement and the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA). In the case, EMI Music Group and fourteen other record companies claimed copyright infringement against MP3tunes, which provides online music storage lockers, and MP3tunes's founder, Michael Robertson. In a decision that has ramifications for the future of online locker services, the court held that MP3tunes qualifies for safe harbor protection under the DMCA. However, the court found MP3tunes to still be liable for contributory copyright infringement in this case due to its failure to remove infringing songs after receiving takedown notices. The court also held that Robertson is liable for songs he personally copied from unauthorized websites.

Mark Rivkin is a Canadian born investor and entrepreneur. Rivkin is the co-founder of CryptoLogic Inc., which he started with his brother Andrew Rivkin in 1995. He also co-founded QT Inc. in 2004, a Toronto-based investment company which he owns and operates with Harvey Solursh.

David Wendell Phillips is an American lawyer, businessman and investor. He is an angel investor in Silicon Valley, an experienced Internet executive, entrepreneur, and attorney.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jukin Media</span> Viral video licensing company

Jukin Media, Inc. is an entertainment company that operates by identifying shareable or otherwise compelling user-generated videos, negotiating with the video owners, and then licensing the videos for third-party use and/or featuring the videos in its own productions. The company was founded in 2009 by Jonathan Skogmo, Aldo Carrascoso and Josh Entman and is headquartered in Los Angeles, California.

<i>CryptoKitties</i> 2017 blockchain game on Ethereum

CryptoKitties is a blockchain game developed by Canadian studio Dapper Labs. The game allows players to buy, sell, and create non-fungible tokens (NFTs) using Ethereum. These NFTs represent virtual cats. The game's popularity in December 2017, congested the Ethereum network, causing it to reach an all-time high in the number of transactions and slowing it down significantly.

Crypto.com is a cryptocurrency exchange company based in Singapore that offers various financial services, including an app, exchange, and noncustodial DeFi wallet, NFT marketplace, and direct payment service in cryptocurrency. As of June 2023, the company reportedly had 80 million customers and 4,000 employees. The exchange issues its own exchange token named Cronos (CRO).

References

  1. ↑ "Penn Engineering – Board of Overseers". www.seas.upenn.edu.
  2. ↑ "Dining Philosophers". dp.seas.upenn.edu.
  3. ↑ Jim Hu and John Borland (May 29, 2001). "Bertelsmann to buy Myplay". CNET.
  4. ↑ "N2K INC, Form 10-K, Annual Report, Filing Date Mar 27, 1998". secdatabase.com. Retrieved May 15, 2018.
  5. ↑ http://www.copyright.gov/reports/studies/dmca/testimony/pakman.pdf [ bare URL PDF ]
  6. ↑ "Report to Congress: Study Examining 17 U.S.C. Sections 109 and 117 Pursuant to Section 104 of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act | National Telecommunications and Information Administration". Ntia.doc.gov. March 21, 2001. Retrieved June 17, 2019.
  7. ↑ "YouTube". www.youtube.com.[ dead YouTube link ]
  8. ↑ "About". Jazz at Lincoln Center. Archived from the original on April 7, 2014. Retrieved September 17, 2012.
  9. ↑ "Hearing on: "Music Licensing Part One: Legislation in the 112th Congress"". Archived from the original on November 29, 2012. Retrieved November 29, 2012.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.