Kembrew McLeod

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Kembrew McLeod is an American journalist, artist, activist, and professor of Communication Studies at the University of Iowa.

He is perhaps best known as a performance artist or "media prankster" who filed an application in 1997 to register the phrase "Freedom of Expression" as a trademark in the United States. This phrase was the name of his zine/artist book series, and on January 6, 1998 McLeod was granted registration no. 2127381 in Class 16 (for "booklets in the field of creative writing").

McLeod received his PhD from University of Massachusetts-Amherst, an MA from the University of Virginia, and a BS from James Madison University.

Contents

[edit] Dispute with AT&T

McLeod sought registration of the phrase as a reflection on the use of intellectual property law to restrict cultural expression in U.S. society. In 2003, McLeod sent AT&T a cease and desist letter in response to an AT&T advertising campaign in college newspapers promoting a new long distance plan which used the phrase "freedom of expression". McLeod claimed that the use by AT&T of his registered trademark could lead some consumers to infer a connection between his publication and AT&T. The New York Times later interviewed McLeod, and reported that his aim was "to object to corporate power over words, speech and even ideas. 'I do want to register my genuine protest that a big company that really doesn't represent freedom of expression is trying to appropriate this phrase,' he said".

[edit] Trademark issues

From a trademark law perspective, anyone may seek to register any phrase as a trademark. Any sign which is used to distinguish the products or services of one business from the products or services of another business may qualify as a "trademark", and a slogan like "freedom of expression" is a sign which may fulfil this purpose.

A registration for a slogan mark like any other mark may be protected by way of trademark infringement proceedings. However, infringement may only be established where a confusingly similar mark is used in relation to products or services which are the same as or similar to the products or services covered by the registration. Upon registration of "Freedom of Expresssion", McLeod held certain exclusive rights in relation to this phrase in relation to "booklets in the field of creative writing" or similar products only. These rights could be enforced to the extent that there had been infringing "trademark use" of the phrase in relation to such products.

McLeod appears to be well aware of this and points out in page 122 of the hardcover edition of his 2005 book, Freedom of Expression® that: "It’s important to note that I had no real case against AT&T. My trademark didn’t protect the phrase in the context of advertising, just as Fox News wasn’t able to prevent its trademarked slogan from being used as the title of Al Franken’s book. I was overreaching, much as overzealous corporate bozos so often do when they try to muzzle freedom of expression". McLeod has also publicly stated at two different law school appearances that he will formally announce the "death" of his trademark in a new afterword to be published in the paperback edition of Freedom of Expression®, which will also include a foreword by Stanford Law Professor Lawrence Lessig.

Registration no. 2127381 was cancelled in October 2004 when McLeod did not lodge documentary evidence with the United States Patent and Trademark Office to demonstrate that "Freedom of Expression" had been used as a trademark.

[edit] Other work

McLeod's book built upon the themes raised by the AT&T event and develops a serious critique on a range of diverse topics such as hip-hop music and sampling, the patenting of seeds and human genes, folk and blues music, visual collage art, electronic voting, and computer software, among other things.

McLeod has also written music criticism for Rolling Stone, the Village Voice, Spin, and Mojo. He is the coproducer of a 2001 documentary film on the music industry, Money for Nothing: Behind the Business of Pop Music, which he produced for the Media Education Foundation. He is currently working on another documentary on the history of sound collage, digital sampling, and intellectual property law, titled Copyright Criminals: This Is a Sampling Sport."

He participated in the exhibition "Illegal Art: Freedom of Expression in the Corporate Age," which was hosted by the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art's Artist Gallery. In 2005, he helped co-found the Freedom of Expression® Security Consortium, which is dedicated to "Regulating Freedom of Expression in the Marketplace of Ideas". He also is co-editor (with Ted Striphas) of a 2006 special issue of the journal Cultural Studies on "The Politics of Intellectual Properties," which is available for free on the internet.

[edit] See also

[edit] References

  • McLeod, Kembrew (2007). Freedom of Expression®: Resistance and Repression in the Age of Intellectual Property. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. ISBN 0816650314. 
  • Striphas, Ted and McLeod, Kembrew (eds.) (March/May 2006). Cultural Studies. London: Routledge/Taylor & Francis. ISSN 0950-2386.  ZIP download
  • McLeod, Kembrew (2005). Freedom of Expression®: Overzealous Copyright Bozos and Other Enemies of Creativity. New York: Doubleday. ISBN 0-385-51325-9.  PDF download
  • McLeod, Kembrew (2001). Owning Culture: Authorship, Ownership, and Intellectual Property Law (Popular Culture and Everyday Life). New York: Peter Lang Publishing. ISBN 0-8204-5157-6. 

[edit] External links

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