Vol. 10 No. 4 (April 2000) pp. 284-286.

THE CULTURAL LIFE OF INTELLECTUAL PROPERTIES: AUTHORSHIP, APPROPRIATION, AND THE LAW by Rosemary J. Coombe. Durham, North Carolina: Duke University Press, 1998. 462 pp.

Reviewed by Mark Kessler, Department of Political Science, Bates College.

Rosemary J. Coombe, Associate Professor of Law at the University of Toronto, begins this original and provocative volume with a description of her journey from home to her class on intellectual property one morning. Along the way she notices numerous labels, logos, and trademarks in advertisements, merchandise in shops, and the clothing of people she observes. In the course of this very brief excursion through the streets of

Toronto, she spots "at least thirty-four legally protected cultural texts," and observed "about a dozen potential intellectual property infringements" (p. 5). Coombe uses these observations to highlight the increasing pervasiveness of signs and symbols protected by laws of trademark and copyright, design patents, and publicity rights, a theme that runs throughout the book. This effective introduction is followed by a discussion of the

theoretical framework she employs to examine the ways in which intellectual property illuminates law's role in culture.

Coombe argues for what she calls a "critical cultural legal studies," a perspective informed by postmodernism, anthropology, cultural studies, and critical theories of law. In general, her sophisticated approach examines the intersection of law, politics, and culture by a focus on what is signified in cultural texts protected by laws of intellectual property and through political struggles over meaning among differently situated

populations. Therefore, she examines how commercial logos, trademarks, and labels "provide symbolic resources for the construction of identity and community, subaltern appropriations, parodic interventions, and counterhegemonic narratives" (p. 7). This approach calls attention to the operation and workings of law in everyday life and the ways in which local practice is shaped by and challenge legal mandates. Methodologically, Coombe describes her project as "antipositivist" (p. 9). She focuses on interpretations and intersubjective understanding, especially interpretations

by marginalized people that subvert dominant understandings seemingly protected by intellectual property laws. Drawing on the insights of postmodern writers who emphasize opportunities in daily life for resistance to dominant ideologies, she argues that, "[l]egal discourses are spaces of resistance as well as regulation, possibility as well as prohibition, subversion as well as sanction" (p. 25). These subversive uses of cultural

texts, according to Coombe, may be significant politically as resources for social transformation. Thus, by focusing on the law of intellectual properties and meanings attached by differently situated people to the cultural texts "protected" by these laws,

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Coombe suggests a potentially fruitful avenue for studying cultural politics. Such a project is concerned with "showing how differences in the social fabric are expressed with commodified texts and how differences in meaning are inadvertently encouraged and overtly contained by regimes of intellectual property. Differences between those who disseminate commodity signs ... and those who consume them animate the legal regulation of cultural forms. Such cultural forms simultaneously become mediums for expression of alterity as they function as expressions of authorial distinction" (p. 15).

Five chapters examine the cultural politics of intellectual properties through an often-fascinating synthesis of ethnographic research. Throughout these chapters Coombe seeks to demonstrate that law does not act only as a set of constraining rules, but that "[l]egal regimes of intellectual property shape (although they do not determine) the way in which cultural signs are re/appropriated by those who assert difference in the spaces of similarity, imitating and mimicking signs of authority to express relations of alterity."

Coombe, then, sees intellectual property law, as "a generative condition and a prohibitive boundary for hegemonic articulations and subaltern practices of appropriation" (p. 27). It is impossible in a relatively short review to capture the complexity and nuance of Coombe's skilled analyses of the many and varied ethnographic examples provided in Chapters 1 through 5. In these chapters, Coombe, among other things, explores the cultural politics surrounding the use of the Olympic logo by gays planning the Gay Olympic Games; political and legal struggles over the use of the Native American

hero, Crazy Horse, in advertising malt liquor; creative reinterpretations of television characters in STAR TREK fan magazines by those seeking to "explore their own subordinate status" (p. 118); the appropriation by gays and lesbians of cultural icons such as Judy Garland and Greta Garbo to subvert traditional notions of sexuality and assist in identity formation; and the use by subaltern groups of false rumors as "cultural guerrilla tactics" targeted against such corporations as Proctor and Gamble, Reebok, Phillip

Morris, and Troop Sport.

Two final chapters assess implications of her analyses for what she terms "dialogic democracy." Throughout the volume, she argues for a conception of cultural democracy that views the "ongoing negotiation and struggle over meaning" as the "essence of dialogical practice." Coombe worries that intellectual property laws may "quash dialogue by affirming the power of corporate actors to monologically control meaning by appealing to an abstract concept of property." Such laws, then, are seen to "privilege

monologic forms against dialogic practice and create significant power differentials between social actors engaged in hegemonic struggle." Consequently, Coombe calls for a reconceptualization of the "political" and a rethinking of intellectual property law in the face of its potentially adverse impact on important forms of political participation. According to Coombe, "Intellectual property laws ... may serve to deprive us of the

optimal cultural conditions for dialogic practice. By objectifying and reifying cultural forms freezing the connotations of signs and symbols and fencing off fields of cultural meanings with "`No Trespassing' signs intellectual property laws may enable certain forms of political practice and constrain others" (p. 69).

In general, the arguments are clear and well supported. However, two problems

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are worthy of mention. First, the book is composed of a series of essays, several of which were previously published. Coombe states that, "[e]ach chapter is self-contained and reflects a historical moment in an intellectual journey. Although some effort has been made to update chapters to reflect recent contributions by other scholars addressing similar topics, no attempt has been made to revisit theoretical positions held in one moment with later formulations" (p. 5). This choice makes one wonder if and where

theoretical formulations vary throughout her text. For me, however, the problem with the way in which this volume was put together has less to do with inconsistency (I do not see major discrepancies in theoretical formulations from chapter to chapter) and more with redundancy. Most of the chapters rehearse the theoretical framework that she applies to the case of intellectual property, for example, increasing the overall length of the

manuscript needlessly.

A second issue is related to Coombe's position on authorship, a concept that is significant enough in her analysis to find a place in the book's subtitle. At one point Coombe calls this study one that explores "conceits of authorship and the peculiar powers it confers" (p. ix). Throughout the book, she employs postmodern insights in works by people like Foucault and Barthes on the "death of the author." However, by conventional standards of scholarly citation, she does an absolutely wonderful job of attributing ideas to authors. Indeed, the book includes some 96 pages of endnotes and 45 pages of bibliographic references. Coombe is in the strange position, in other words, of interrogating traditional notions of authorship by citing numerous scholarly sources. Also, she acknowledges it. At one point she writes, "I will try to cease citing endless authorities in incessant notes, a convention of modern legal scholarship that assumes that an abundance of small typeface

will enable us to 'speak in the name of the real'" (p. 43). Then, in two endnotes connected to this sentence, she cites an author who uses the last phrase "speak in the name of the real", traces it through three other works by three other authors, and writes "Well, I did try" (p. 313, n.13). I appreciated the honesty and humor but wondered what Coombe really thought about authorship after all was said and done.

In general, this book makes a strong case for rethinking many concepts at the center of law and politics research. By Coombe's description, the book "is an act of unworking, rather than one of deconstruction; it will pose more questions than it will provide answers, disaggregating some of the certainties and identities that provide the currency of modern juridical regimes" (p. 39). This project of reconceptualization," as she also calls it (p. 39), may trouble some, especially those who believe that state institutions are the sole site of cultural politics. However, its intelligent interrogation of concepts that are taken for granted in conventional legal scholarship and its sophisticated, nuanced, and persuasive formulation and examination of cultural politics and the struggle over

meaning in the everyday life of the law are significant strengths. Its reconceptualization of politics, and culture provides a mapping for future scholarly work that promises to contribute to our understanding of the relationship between law and social transformation. This is an important book, asking terribly significant questions and providing reasonable answers supported by numerous provocative examples. It deserves to be read and discussed by all who are concerned about the role of law in cultural

politics.