Ben Ivins graduated from DePaul University with a major in Political Science in 1969, and received his law degree from Georgetown University Law Center in 1977, where be was an editor of the Georgetown Law Journal.

Mr. Ivins clerked with the law firm of Corcoran, Youngman and Rowe from 1975 through 1977, and in 1978, clerked for the Honorable Howard Corcoran, a federal district judge in the District of Columbia. From 1979 to 1984, Mr. Ivins was an associate of the law firm of Pierson, Ball and Dowd specializing in litigation and communications law, and from 1984 to 1987 was an associate at the law firm of Covington and Burling specializing in communications law.

Mr. Ivins has been with the National Association of Broadcasters since June of 1987, where he presently holds the position of Senior Associate General counsel, Intellectual Property and International Legal Affairs. In this position, Mr. Ivins manages NAB's internal copyright and trademark policies and coordinates its positions on national and international intellectual property issues.

Mr. Ivins has represented broadcasters' interests at the World Intellectual Property Organization ("WIPO") in Geneva since 1991 on the Copyright, and Performances and Phonograms Treaties, and proposed treaties on the rights of audiovisual performers and broadcasters. In 1995, Mr. Ivins served as Rapporteur for copyright sessions at the 8th World Conference of Broadcast Unions in Bridgetown, Barbados and as a copyright panelist at the International Broadcasting Symposium in Tokyo, Japan. During 1995, he served as a consultant to Stanley S. Hubbard, President and CEO of Hubbard Broadcasting, in Mr. Hubbard's capacity as a member of the U.S. NII Advisory Council, and served as the principal broadcast negotiator in deliberations leading to the Digital Performance Right in Sound Recording Act of 1995. In April 1996 and November 2000, the U.S.I.A. sent Mr. Ivins to the Philippines to lecture broadcasters on broadcast regulation and intellectual property, and in June 1996, the foundation Friedrich Ebert sponsored Mr. Ivins' lectures to Caribbean broadcasters on copyright in Barbados. Mr. Ivins was a panelist at WIPO's World Symposium on Broadcasting, New Communications Technologies and Intellectual Property in Manila in April 1997. In 1998, Mr. Ivins represented broadcasters' interests in connection with the Digital Millennium Copyright Act of 1998, and in 1999 on the Satellite Home Viewer Improvement Act ("SHVIA"). Presently, Mr. Ivins is coordinating NAB's activities in connection with enforcement of, and rule makings related to the SHVIA, and broadcaster issues related to the streaming of their signals on the internet.

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