Product Information
Community-generated art forms have tremendous economic and social value, yet most source communities have little control over them. White suburban youths perform rap music, New York fashion designers ransack the world's closets for inspiration, and Euro-American authors adopt the voice of a geisha or shaman. While claims of authenticity or quality may prompt some consumers to seek cultural products at their source, the communities of origin are generally unable to exclude copyists through legal action. Like other works of unincorporated group authorship, cultural products lack protection under our system of intellectual property law. But is this legal vacuum an injustice, the lifeblood of American culture, a historical oversight, a result of administrative incapacity, or all of the above? Who Owns Culture? offers the first comprehensive analysis of cultural authorship and appropriation within American law. From indigenous art to Linux, Susan Scafidi takes the reader on a tour of the no-man's-land between law and culture, pausing to ask: What prompts us to offer legal protection to works of literature, but not folklore? What does it mean for a creation to belong to a community, especially a diffuse or fractured one? And is our national culture the product of Yankee ingenuity or cultural kleptomania? Providing new insights to communal authorship, cultural appropriation, intellectual property law, and the formation of American culture, this innovative and accessible guide greatly enriches future legal understanding of cultural production.Product Identifiers
PublisherRutgers University Press
ISBN-139780813536064
eBay Product ID (ePID)88914062
Product Key Features
Publication Year2005
SubjectLaw, Government
Number of Pages208 Pages
LanguageEnglish
Publication NameWho Owns Culture?: Appropriation and Authenticity in American Law
TypeTextbook
AuthorSusan Scafidi
SeriesRutgers Series: the Public Life of the Arts
Additional Product Features
Country/Region of ManufactureUnited States
Title_AuthorSusan Scafidi