About a week ago BusinessWeek’s Heather Green put out a call to Blogspotting readers (Link) for questions they might like to have answered by Etsy co-founder, Rob Kalin. I couldn’t resist.

The podcast is now available, both on iTunes (though I couldn’t find it a few days ago) and via an mp3 download. Worth a listen.

{A big} By the way, did Kalin casually mix trademarks with Fair Use? Sure seemed that way to me. Maybe he missed this item previously for sale on Etsy: Gameboy cufflinks (reLink). Considering the kinds of legitimately-licensed stuff that has carried the Nintendo logo – like these keychains which aren’t too different from these keychains on Amazon, which themselves aren’t too different from this supposedly “craft” pendant on Etsy made by someone in … Oregon? or this pendant on Etsy made by someone in Long Beach? – I have my doubts Nintendo or any judge would call those very likely unlicensed items Fair Use. I mean, Nintendo licenses their character images to be used on boxer shorts (Link), so does anyone think they’d ignore keychains and pendants? Well, you don’t have to guess, they have a list (Link) of some things already licensed… and keychains is on it.

I have a feeling Etsy is going to have to figure out how to deal with illegal consumer content sooner rather than later, because unlike YouTube and Second Life and all the non-tangible stuff out there which doesn’t really cost anything to replicate, companies that pay a licensing fee and invest money into the manufacturing of physical goods are going to have a problem with the growth of easy-to-market-and-sell sites like Etsy. Web sales are a big step away from selling knock-offs in alleyways and on street corners.