Kembrew McLeod
Encyclopedia
Kembrew McLeod is an American
journalist
, artist
, activist
, and professor
of Communication Studies
at the University of Iowa
.
He is best known as a performance artist or "media prankster" who filed an application in 1997 to register the phrase "Freedom of Expression" as a trademark
in the United States. This phrase was the name of his zine/artist book series, and on January 6, 1998 McLeod was granted registration no. 2127381 in Class 16 (for "booklets in the field of creative writing").
McLeod received his PhD from University of Massachusetts
-Amherst, an MA from the University of Virginia
, and a BS from James Madison University
.
law to restrict cultural expression in U.S. society. In 2003, McLeod sent AT&T
a cease and desist
letter in response to an AT&T advertising campaign in college newspapers promoting a new long distance plan which used the phrase "freedom of expression". McLeod claimed that the use by AT&T of his registered trademark could lead some consumers to infer a connection between his publication and AT&T. The New York Times
later interviewed McLeod, and reported that his aim was "to object to corporate power over words, speech and even idea
s. 'I do want to register my genuine protest that a big company that really doesn't represent freedom of expression is trying to appropriate this phrase,' he said".
Registration no. 2127381 was cancelled in October 2004 when McLeod did not lodge documentary evidence with the United States Patent and Trademark Office
to demonstrate that "Freedom of Expression" had been used as a trademark.
, dressed as a robot
and demanding an apology for remarks made by Clinton in 1992 about controversial hip hop musician Sister Souljah
. Before being removed by security and as he was led away, McLeod tossed multi-colored flyers into the air which included the name of a website, mr-ifobca.org, standing for "Mad Robots in Favor of Bill Clinton Apologizing."
music and sampling
, the patenting of seeds and human genes
, folk and blues
music, visual collage
art, electronic voting
, and computer software, among other things.
McLeod has also written music criticism for Rolling Stone
, the Village Voice, Spin, and Mojo. He is the coproducer of a 2001 documentary film
on the music industry, Money for Nothing: Behind the Business of Pop Music, which he produced for the Media Education Foundation. He is currently working on another documentary on the history of sound collage, digital sampling, and intellectual property law, titled Copyright Criminals: This Is a Sampling Sport."
He participated in the exhibition "Illegal Art: Freedom of Expression in the Corporate Age," which was hosted by the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art
's Artist Gallery. In 2005, he helped co-found the Freedom of Expression® Security Consortium, which is dedicated to "Regulating Freedom of Expression in the Marketplace of Ideas". He also is co-editor (with Ted Striphas) of a 2006 special issue of the journal Cultural Studies on "The Politics of Intellectual Properties," which is available for free on the internet.
His book, Freedom of Expression, is available as a free PDF download with a Creative Commons
license.
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
journalist
Journalist
A journalist collects and distributes news and other information. A journalist's work is referred to as journalism.A reporter is a type of journalist who researchs, writes, and reports on information to be presented in mass media, including print media , electronic media , and digital media A...
, artist
Artist
An artist is a person engaged in one or more of any of a broad spectrum of activities related to creating art, practicing the arts and/or demonstrating an art. The common usage in both everyday speech and academic discourse is a practitioner in the visual arts only...
, activist
Activism
Activism consists of intentional efforts to bring about social, political, economic, or environmental change. Activism can take a wide range of forms from writing letters to newspapers or politicians, political campaigning, economic activism such as boycotts or preferentially patronizing...
, and professor
Professor
A professor is a scholarly teacher; the precise meaning of the term varies by country. Literally, professor derives from Latin as a "person who professes" being usually an expert in arts or sciences; a teacher of high rank...
of Communication Studies
Communication studies
Communication Studies is an academic field that deals with processes of communication, commonly defined as the sharing of symbols over distances in space and time. Hence, communication studies encompasses a wide range of topics and contexts ranging from face-to-face conversation to speeches to mass...
at the University of Iowa
University of Iowa
The University of Iowa is a public state-supported research university located in Iowa City, Iowa, United States. It is the oldest public university in the state. The university is organized into eleven colleges granting undergraduate, graduate, and professional degrees...
.
He is best known as a performance artist or "media prankster" who filed an application in 1997 to register the phrase "Freedom of Expression" as a trademark
Trademark
A trademark, trade mark, or trade-mark is a distinctive sign or indicator used by an individual, business organization, or other legal entity to identify that the products or services to consumers with which the trademark appears originate from a unique source, and to distinguish its products or...
in the United States. This phrase was the name of his zine/artist book series, and on January 6, 1998 McLeod was granted registration no. 2127381 in Class 16 (for "booklets in the field of creative writing").
McLeod received his PhD from University of Massachusetts
University of Massachusetts
This article relates to the statewide university system. For the flagship campus often referred to as "UMass", see University of Massachusetts Amherst...
-Amherst, an MA from the University of Virginia
University of Virginia
The University of Virginia is a public research university located in Charlottesville, Virginia, United States, founded by Thomas Jefferson...
, and a BS from James Madison University
James Madison University
James Madison University is a public coeducational research university located in Harrisonburg, Virginia, U.S. Founded in 1908 as the State Normal and Industrial School for Women at Harrisonburg, the university has undergone four name changes before settling with James Madison University...
.
Dispute with AT&T
McLeod sought registration of the phrase as a reflection on the use of intellectual propertyIntellectual property
Intellectual property is a term referring to a number of distinct types of creations of the mind for which a set of exclusive rights are recognized—and the corresponding fields of law...
law to restrict cultural expression in U.S. society. In 2003, McLeod sent AT&T
AT&T
AT&T Inc. is an American multinational telecommunications corporation headquartered in Whitacre Tower, Dallas, Texas, United States. It is the largest provider of mobile telephony and fixed telephony in the United States, and is also a provider of broadband and subscription television services...
a cease and desist
Cease and desist
A cease and desist is an order or request to halt an activity and not to take it up again later or else face legal action. The recipient of the cease-and-desist may be an individual or an organization....
letter in response to an AT&T advertising campaign in college newspapers promoting a new long distance plan which used the phrase "freedom of expression". McLeod claimed that the use by AT&T of his registered trademark could lead some consumers to infer a connection between his publication and AT&T. The New York Times
The New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
later interviewed McLeod, and reported that his aim was "to object to corporate power over words, speech and even idea
Idea
In the most narrow sense, an idea is just whatever is before the mind when one thinks. Very often, ideas are construed as representational images; i.e. images of some object. In other contexts, ideas are taken to be concepts, although abstract concepts do not necessarily appear as images...
s. 'I do want to register my genuine protest that a big company that really doesn't represent freedom of expression is trying to appropriate this phrase,' he said".
Registration no. 2127381 was cancelled in October 2004 when McLeod did not lodge documentary evidence with the United States Patent and Trademark Office
United States Patent and Trademark Office
The United States Patent and Trademark Office is an agency in the United States Department of Commerce that issues patents to inventors and businesses for their inventions, and trademark registration for product and intellectual property identification.The USPTO is based in Alexandria, Virginia,...
to demonstrate that "Freedom of Expression" had been used as a trademark.
Protesting Bill Clinton over Sister Souljah controversy
On December 10, 2007, McLeod protested a Bill Clinton event in Iowa City, IowaIowa
Iowa is a state located in the Midwestern United States, an area often referred to as the "American Heartland". It derives its name from the Ioway people, one of the many American Indian tribes that occupied the state at the time of European exploration. Iowa was a part of the French colony of New...
, dressed as a robot
Robot
A robot is a mechanical or virtual intelligent agent that can perform tasks automatically or with guidance, typically by remote control. In practice a robot is usually an electro-mechanical machine that is guided by computer and electronic programming. Robots can be autonomous, semi-autonomous or...
and demanding an apology for remarks made by Clinton in 1992 about controversial hip hop musician Sister Souljah
Sister Souljah
Sister Souljah is an American hip hop-generation author, activist, recording artist, and film producer. She gained prominence for Bill Clinton's criticism of her remarks about race in the United States during the 1992 presidential campaign...
. Before being removed by security and as he was led away, McLeod tossed multi-colored flyers into the air which included the name of a website, mr-ifobca.org, standing for "Mad Robots in Favor of Bill Clinton Apologizing."
Other work
McLeod's book built upon the themes raised by the AT&T event and develops a serious critique on a range of diverse topics such as hip-hopHip hop music
Hip hop music, also called hip-hop, rap music or hip-hop music, is a musical genre consisting of a stylized rhythmic music that commonly accompanies rapping, a rhythmic and rhyming speech that is chanted...
music and sampling
Sampling (music)
In music, sampling is the act of taking a portion, or sample, of one sound recording and reusing it as an instrument or a different sound recording of a song or piece. Sampling was originally developed by experimental musicians working with musique concrète and electroacoustic music, who physically...
, the patenting of seeds and human genes
Gênes
Gênes is the name of a département of the First French Empire in present Italy, named after the city of Genoa. It was formed in 1805, when Napoleon Bonaparte occupied the Republic of Genoa. Its capital was Genoa, and it was divided in the arrondissements of Genoa, Bobbio, Novi Ligure, Tortona and...
, folk and blues
Blues
Blues is the name given to both a musical form and a music genre that originated in African-American communities of primarily the "Deep South" of the United States at the end of the 19th century from spirituals, work songs, field hollers, shouts and chants, and rhymed simple narrative ballads...
music, visual collage
Collage
A collage is a work of formal art, primarily in the visual arts, made from an assemblage of different forms, thus creating a new whole....
art, electronic voting
Electronic voting
Electronic voting is a term encompassing several different types of voting, embracing both electronic means of casting a vote and electronic means of counting votes....
, and computer software, among other things.
McLeod has also written music criticism for Rolling Stone
Rolling Stone
Rolling Stone is a US-based magazine devoted to music, liberal politics, and popular culture that is published every two weeks. Rolling Stone was founded in San Francisco in 1967 by Jann Wenner and music critic Ralph J...
, the Village Voice, Spin, and Mojo. He is the coproducer of a 2001 documentary film
Documentary film
Documentary films constitute a broad category of nonfictional motion pictures intended to document some aspect of reality, primarily for the purposes of instruction or maintaining a historical record...
on the music industry, Money for Nothing: Behind the Business of Pop Music, which he produced for the Media Education Foundation. He is currently working on another documentary on the history of sound collage, digital sampling, and intellectual property law, titled Copyright Criminals: This Is a Sampling Sport."
He participated in the exhibition "Illegal Art: Freedom of Expression in the Corporate Age," which was hosted by the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art
San Francisco Museum of Modern Art
The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art is a modern art museum located in San Francisco, California. A nonprofit organization, SFMOMA holds an internationally recognized collection of modern and contemporary art and was the first museum on the West Coast devoted solely to 20th century art...
's Artist Gallery. In 2005, he helped co-found the Freedom of Expression® Security Consortium, which is dedicated to "Regulating Freedom of Expression in the Marketplace of Ideas". He also is co-editor (with Ted Striphas) of a 2006 special issue of the journal Cultural Studies on "The Politics of Intellectual Properties," which is available for free on the internet.
His book, Freedom of Expression, is available as a free PDF download with a Creative Commons
Creative Commons
Creative Commons is a non-profit organization headquartered in Mountain View, California, United States devoted to expanding the range of creative works available for others to build upon legally and to share. The organization has released several copyright-licenses known as Creative Commons...
license.
Further reading
ZIP download PDF downloadExternal links
- Kembrew McLeod Homepage
- Kembrew McLeod faculty page at University of Iowa
- Freedom of Expression® Security Consortium
- Copyright Criminals movie site
- Interview with Kembrew McLeod/Copyright Criminals - small WORLD Podcast 2006
- Cultural Studies special issue on the "Politics of Intellectual Properties"