Kathy Bowrey

THE POLITICS OF GLOBAL INFORMATION SHARING: WHOSE CULTURAL AGENDAS ARE BEING ADVANCED?

Open-knowledge communities, the public domain and public policies protecting the global sharing of information and resources seek to counter the last decade of IP maximalization. Such movements aim to rebalance ‘public’ interests within IP discourse. Historically, dispossession of Indigenous persons in settler communities was concomitant with their exclusion from ‘the public’. This has significant consequences for Indigenous peoples struggling to regain control over knowledge resources today. This article considers the imaginary inclusions that underlie Anglo-Australian intellectual property law and considers problems with redressing past injustice by defining Indigenous difference in terms of a cultural exception within intellectual property law.

The Outer Limits of Copyright Law – Where Law Meets Philosophy and Culture

This article engages in a cultural critique of copyright law. The point is to explain how and why this body of law is culturally exclusive, notwithstanding the claims made by judges and others that the law is culturally open and inclusive. This involves a discussion of the relationship between philosophy and law, and of how this nexus has been misrepresented by the courts and in recent writings on the subject. Analysis centres on a discussion of Australian case law involving indigenous claims of communal ownership of copyright and the treatment of technology when it comes to attributing authorship.

The New Intellectual Property: Celebrity, Fans and the Properties of the Entertainment Franchise

This article explores the property claims of the global entertainment franchise. It is argued that the modern idea of intellectual property protection of nominated creative works of authors and relatively geographically distinct audiences is undergoing a transformation. The emerging global ideal of ownership and protection operates at a much higher level of abstraction or immateriality. The new intellectual property right contains a far more amorphous claim for protection of the creative force associated with an innovation, the capacity to mobilise the affective relations of fans across the globe, coupled with the promise of its materialisation in a bottomless array of consumer relationships – exchanges that hopefully will endure across the decades. Case studies of economic claims and legal disputes related to the Star Trek and the Harry Potter universes are considered. The article also reflects on the usefulness of humanities concepts such as audience, celebrity, fandom, appropriation and transmedia for understanding contemporary economic and cultural production, and the new ownership claims of the global entertainment industry.

Law and creativity in the age of the entertainment franchise

Part I. Introduction: 1. Franchise dynamics, creativity and the law Kathy Bowrey and Michael Handler Part II. The Productivity of the Author Model: Authors, Collaborators and Non-Authors: 2. The author strikes back: mutating authorship in the expanded universe Lionel Bently and Laura Biron 3. Franchises, imaginary worlds, authorship and fandom David Lindsay 4. Digital sampling and music industry practices, re-spun Johnson Okpaluba Part III. Managing Authorship: 5. Building and rebuilding reputations: reflections on the role of defamation law in the life of a celebrity David Rolph 6. Dramatic copyright and the Disneyfication of theatre space Brent Salter and Kathy Bowrey 7. Instituting copyright: reconciling copyright law and industry practice in the Australian film and television sector Kathy Bowrey and Michael Handler 8. Flamenco music in copyright historiography Jose Bellido Part IV. Group Rights and Culture: 9. Arts festivals: property, heritage or more? Fiona Macmillan 10. Franchising carnival: issues of rights and cultural identity Sharon Le Gall.

The Ideal Copyright Framework for Academic Authors? A Bounty to Genius and Learning

ABSTRACTThis article discusses the situation of academic copyright within a broader discussion of the historical role of copyright law, libraries, academic publishing practices and changes in the digital environment. Because academics are both owners and users of copyrighted material and share interests as individual authors and as members of academic communities, neither a strong ‘owners’ nor ‘users’ rights-based approach is particularly helpful. It is argued that in order to decide what the ‘ideal’ framework for academic copyright entails, we first need to decide what role we, as academics, and our universities, should play in the knowledge economy.

Disney in Spain (1930–1935)

Abstract This article looks at the ways in which the global brand par excellence – Mickey Mouse – spread throughout Spain in the early 1930s. In tracing the creative and commercial interplay with the Mickey character we show how the Disney Company failed to obtain any significant intellectual property rights in its own name or obtain a sympathetic hearing by Spanish patent and trademark officials. Yet this was undoubtedly a period of significant global development of the Disney brand. With the attempt to explain such an apparent contradictory situation, this article highlights the importance of the management of particular struggles in the flux of desires, appropriation and investments that contributed to the emergence of the elusive ‘merchandising right’.