Intellectual Property & Popular Culture (LAWS50128)

Intellectual Property and Popular Culture (IPPC) is designed to offer an interdisciplinary cultural studies perspective on the enforcement of intellectual property (IP) rights with a focus on the relevance of an understanding of cultural production and semiotic consumption to legal doctrine. It discusses the application of intellectual property laws to aspects of popular culture such as movies, television, music, sports, fashion, and lifestyle.

Contemporary culture in industrialised nations is characterised by a vibrant kaleidoscope of images and spectacles that permeate the fabric of everyday life, influencing consumption choices and political views, and providing meaningful materials out of which people may shape their own identities. It is in a hybrid mode as consumer-citizens that individuals participate to express freedom, choice and identity. The conceptual framework of cultural studies can help one better understand why certain cultural artefacts are universally popular and their significant impact within the environment they inhabit, and more importantly, can provide insights into how the law may respond in the context of this cultural milieu. In particular, this subject will examine the cultural and semiotic significance of celebrities (e.g., Lady Gaga, Rihanna), fictional characters (e.g., Superman, Mickey Mouse) and iconic status symbols (e.g., Louis Vuitton, Christian Louboutin).

IPPC uses relevant insights from cultural studies in a pragmatic manner to evaluate how an understanding of the contemporary production, circulation and consumption of such cultural products like celebrities, fictional literary characters and status symbols could ultimately assist in a more nuanced development of copyright, trademark and personality rights laws.

There is no prescribed textbook for this subject., although students are encouraged to have access to The Commercial Appropriation of Fame: A Cultural Analysis of the Right of Publicity & Passing Off. Students will be referred to the foundational writings of Roland Barthes and Stuart Hall in semiotics and audience/media studies, the more recent works of star studies scholars like Richard Dyer and Graeme Turner, and the interdisciplinary IP legal scholarship of authors like Rosemary Coombe, Sonia Katyal and David Tan. A comparative approach will be adopted to examine cultural themes in cases that involve the enforcement of IP rights to protect the celebrity personality, well-known fictional characters/movies/books/songs and iconic brands primarily drawn from the jurisdictions of New York and California, with some references to the United Kingdom, the European Union and Australia. This is not a course on Australian IP law.

This subject is designed for both students who have previously taken modules in intellectual property (e.g., copyright, trademarks) and students who are exposed to intellectual property for the first time.

The objectives of this subject are to:

• introduce key intellectual property rights (IPR) that are relevant to pop culture and popular iconography that includes the celebrity personality, fashion brands, movies and music, with a focus on claims brought by IPR owners in the United States, Europe and Australia;
• provide an interdisciplinary cultural studies perspective on the production, circulation and consumption of the celebrity personality and status symbols in contemporary society, and the relevance to the development of legal doctrine;
• highlight the transnational similarities and differences in the protection of IPR relating to popular iconography, especially in relation to the influence of free speech constitutional provisions; and
• examine, through the lens of cultural studies, the operation of four prominent causes of action in the United States, United Kingdom and Australia, with selected references to other jurisdictions: copyright infringement; trademark infringement and dilution; right of publicity tort; and passing off.

.