Overview

The protection and accumulation of intellectual property rights—like property rights in general—is one of the most important contemporary American values. In his cogent book, The Cultural Production of Intellectual Property Rights, Sean Johnson Andrews shows that the meaning, power, and value of intellectual properties are the consequence of an extended process of cultural production.  Johnson Andrews argues that it is deeper ideological and historical roots which demand that, in the contemporary global, digital economy, all property rights be held sacrosanct and all value must flow back to the legal owner.   Johnson Andrews explains that if we want to rebalance the protection of copyrights and trademarks, we should focus on undermining the reified culture of property that underpins capitalism as a whole. He outlines a framework for analyzing culture; situates intellectual property rights in the history of capitalist property relations; synthesizes key theories of media, politics, and law; and ultimately provides scholars and activists a path to imagining a different future where we prioritize our collective production of value in the commons.

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9781439914298

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Reviews

Johnson Andrews provides a fearless, historically grounded critique of a deeply rooted dogma: `the inviolable rights of property.' In doing so, he carefully addresses a broad set of issues, including the relationship between politics and culture, between law and property, and between capitalism and human agency. The result is a theoretically rich and carefully documented account of why the culture of property matters for understanding the global political economy. This timely and accessible analysis skillfully demonstrates the value of a politicized cultural studies that situates labor at its center. -Vincent Mosco, Professor Emeritus of Sociology at Queen's University and author of Becoming Digital: Toward a Post-Internet Society

Author Information

Sean Johnson Andrews is an Associate Professor of Humanities and Cultural Studies, Columbia College Chicago.  He is the author of Hegemony, Mass Media and Cultural Studies: Properties of Meaning, Power, and Value in Cultural Production and co-editor (with Jaafar Aksikas) of Cultural Studies and the ‘Juridical Turn’: Culture, Law, and Legitimacy in the Era of Neoliberal Capitalism.

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