Ownership of Culture

dublin | rights, freedoms and repression | event notice Tuesday January 10, 2006 14:35 by Sean Dunne

Visiting seminar at Trinity College

Dr. Kembrew Mcleod will be presenting a visiting seminar to the Department of Sociology at Trinity College Dublin, Friday, January 13th in room 3074 of the Arts building.

Title: "Neoliberalism, Intellectual Property Law and the Privatization of Everything Under the Sun"

In 1998, university professor Kembrew McLeod successfully trademarked
with the United States Patent and Trademark Office the phrase "freedom
of expression," an amusing if dark way to comment on how intellectual
property law is increasingly being used to fence off the culture and
restrict the way we're allowed to express ideas. What's happened in
recent years to intellectual property law has had repercussions on our
culture and our everyday lives, and the law's influence has spread
beyond North America and Western Europe as the march of globalization
quickens. The trend toward privatization of everything—melodies, genes,
public space, English language—means an inevitable clash of economic
values against the value of free speech, creativity, and shared
resources. By connecting together topics as diverse as hip-hop music
and digital sampling, the patenting of seeds and human genes, folk and
blues music, visual collage art, and computer software, Kembrew connects this
rapidly accelerating push to pin down everything as a piece of private
property to its effects on music, art, science, and society.

www.kembrew.com