Freedom of Expression®

Resistance and Repression in the Age of Intellectual Property

2007
Author:

Kembrew McLeod
Foreword by Lawrence Lessig

Winner of the American Library Association’s Oboler Award for best scholarship in the area of intellectual freedom

Freedom of Expression® covers the ways in which intellectual property laws have been used to privatize all forms of expression—from guitar riffs and Donald Trump's “you're fired” gesture to human genes and public space—and in the process stifle creative expression. Kembrew McLeod challenges the blind embrace of privatization as it clashes against our right to free speech and shared resources.

People, this is it. . . . A must-read for anyone who wants to actually change the way digital culture operates.

Paul D. Miller, a.k.a. Dj Spooky that Subliminal Kid

Freedom of Expression® covers the ways in which intellectual property laws have been used to privatize all forms of expression—from guitar riffs and Donald Trump’s “you’re fired” gesture to human genes and public space—and in the process stifle creative expression. Kembrew McLeod challenges the blind embrace of privatization as it clashes against our right to free speech and shared resources.



Awards

American Library Association’s Oboler Award winner for best scholarship in the area of intellectual freedom.

Kembrew McLeod is professor of communication studies at the University of Iowa, author of Owning Culture: Authorship, Ownership, and Intellectual Property Law, and coproducer of the documentary Copyright Criminals: This Is a Sampling Sport.

Lawrence Lessig is professor of law at Stanford Law School.

People, this is it. . . . A must-read for anyone who wants to actually change the way digital culture operates.

Paul D. Miller, a.k.a. Dj Spooky that Subliminal Kid

We’re living in an age of intellectual-property rights run amok . . . asserts Kembrew McLeod in this smart, amusing examination of the increasingly grubby clash between private property and free speech.

Mother Jones

[McLeod’s] examination of intellectual property law is clear, concise, and funny.

Wired Magazine