New Book: The Cultural Production of Intellectual Property Rights

Hello All,

With the usual apologies for cross-posting, I'd like to announce the
publication of my latest book. Thanks for your attention.

*The Cultural Production of Intellectual Property Rights: **Law, Labor, and
the Persistence of Primitive Accumulation*

*Temple University Press, 2019*
http://tupress.temple.edu/book/1160
*Sample of Introduction here:*
http://tupress.temple.edu/uploads/book/excerpt/2431_ch1.pdf

*Description*
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 these deeper ideological and historical roots
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.

*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*

“Johnson Andrews uses Marxist theory to engage the Lockean tradition and
explains the workings of branding from its beginnings to the present day as
he guides us through the early history of property rights and their
presidential embodiment. By teasing out how property relations disfigure
current debates, The Cultural Production of Intellectual Property Rights
leads us to the key figure of the worker in the cybertarian fantasies of
the information society that are so pervasive today. This book is a
triumph.”
—*Toby Miller, Research Professor of the Graduate Division at the
University of California, Riverside, and author of Cultural Citizenship:
Cosmopolitanism, Consumerism, and Television in a Neoliberal Age (Temple)*

*Table of Contents*
Acknowledgments

Introduction: Intellectual Property, Neoliberalism, and the Trump-Branded
Triple Movement
1. Culture, the State, and (Intellectual) Property Rights
2. Property, Primitive Accumulation, and the Liberal State
3. Law, Economics, and the Apolitical Culture of Capitalism
4. Culture, Commodification, and the Social Production of Value
5. Culture, Property, and the Ends of Progressive Neoliberalism

References
Index

About the Author(s)
Sean Johnson Andrews is an Associate Professor of Humanities and Cultural
Studies at 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.


-- 
Sean Johnson Andrews
[email protected]
Associate Professor of Cultural Studies
Columbia College Chicago

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