Table of Contents

I Collage, Therefore I Am: An Introduction to Cutting Across Media / Kembrew McLeod and Rudolf Kuenzli 1
Digital Mana: On the Source of the Infinite Proliferation of Mutant Copies on Contemporary Culture / Marcus Boon 24
Copyrights and Copywrongs: An Interview with Siva Vaidhyanathan / Carrie McLaren 38
Das Plagiierenwerk: Convolute Uii / David Tetzlaff 51
PhotoStatic Magazine and the Rise of the Casual Publisher / Lloyd Dunn 57
Plagiarism&reg174; 101: An Appropriated Oral History of the Tape-beatles / Kembrew McLeod 76
Ambiguity and Theft / Joshua Clover 84
Where Does Sad News Come From? / Douglas Kahn 94
Excerpts from "Two Relationships to a Cultural Public Domain" / Negativland 117
Everybody's Got Something to Hide Except for Me and My Lawsuit: William S. Burroughs, DJ Danger Mouse, and the Politics of Grey Tuesday / Davis Schneiderman 132
How Copyright Law Changed Hip-Hop: An Interview with Public Enemy's Chuck D and Hank Shocklee / Kembrew McLeod 152
Hip-Hop Meets the Avant-Garde: A Cease and Desist Letter from Attorneys Representing Philip Glass / Warner Special Products 158
Getting Snippety / Philo T. Farnsworth 160
Crashing the Spectacle: A Forgotten History of Digital Sampling, Infringement, Copyright Liberation, and the End of Recorded Music / Kembrew McLeod 164
Billboard Liberation: A Photo Essay / Craig Baldwin 178
On the Seamlessly Nomadic Future of Collage / Pierre Joris 185
Cultural Sampling and Social Critique: The Collage Aesthetic of Chris Ofili / Lorraine Morales Cox 199
Remixing Cultures: Bartók and Kodály in the Age of Indigenous Cultural Rights / Gábor Vályi 219
A Day to Sing: Creativity, Diversity, and Freedom of Expression in the Network Society / Jeff Chang 237
Visualizing Copyright, Seeing Hegemony: Toward a Meta-Critique of Intellectual Property / Eva Hemmungs Wirtén 252
Collage as Practice and Metaphor in Popular Culture / David Banash 264
Assassination Weapons: The Visual Culture of New Wave Science Fiction / Rob Latham 276
Free Culture: A Conversation with Jonathan Lethem / Kembrew McLeod 290
The Ecstasy of Influence: A Plagiarism / Jonathan Lethem 298
Bibliography 327
Contributors 341
Index 345

Promotional Information

With a focus on collage and appropriation art, essays exploring the legal ramifications of such practices in an age when private companies can own culture using copyright and trademark law

About the Author

Kembrew McLeod is Associate Professor of Communication Studies at the University of Iowa. He is the author of Freedom of Expression®: Resistance and Repression in the Age of Intellectual Property and Owning Culture: Authorship, Ownership, and Intellectual Property Law, and co-creator of the documentary film Copyright Criminals. McLeod and Peter DiCola are the authors of Creative License: The Law and Culture of Digital Sampling, also published by Duke University Press.

Rudolf Kuenzli is Professor of Comparative Literature and English at the University of Iowa, where he is the Director of the International Dada Archive.

Reviews

...the book brings together a broad range of contributors, from highfalutin academics to cutting-edge (no pun intended) street-level remixers, who reflect on a plethora of creative practices in all manner of media and genres." - Vince Carducci, PopMatters.com "Communication is much like a work of art--it is a process of copying, repeating, and varying what we hear. There is no originator or owner of that which shapes our very being, and Cutting Across Media demonstrates how placing restrictions on creative commentary can stifle our cultural development." - Vicki Bennett, aka People Like Us "The collection vacillates between well-demonstrated and novel critical positions. Where the most prominent works on the subject tend to dwell on digital's infinite capacity to reproduce and share itself freely and its current kowtowing to corporate rights management, this book begins by situating appropriation art and collage in the earlier recesses of the twentieth century with Walter Benjamin, the Surrealists, and Dada. Along the way, it touches upon zine culture, audiotape collage, street art, and new wave science fiction; it critiques the international outflows of copyright-subject culture and then it critiques the debate itself... Cutting Across Media is notable in the insight it provides into hip-hop and rap's participation in appropriation art and collage culture." - Allie Curry, Rain Taxi "Prioritising usage over rights lies, ironically, at the heart of capitalism itself- which adds to the current contradictions of perceived digital freedom. McLeod and Kuenzli are more than aware of this, adding that those lamenting the expansion of intellectual property often "sound like Libertarian cowboys'. On the whole, and to its credit, this volume gives voice to both sides. Participations range from, to name just a few, Craig Baldwin's catalogue of 'billboard liberation' activities to McLeods's essays on the KLF (remember the K foundation? Burning GBP1m and giving Rachel Whiteread the 'Worst Artist Award' at her receipt of the Turner Prize and other anarcho-pop manifestations) to David Schneiderman on the cut-ups of William Burroughs and DJ Danger Mouse's Grey Album." - David Ryan, Art Monthly, May 2012