CCR 720: Jaszi and Woodmansee (1996)

Jaszi, Peter, and Martha Woodmansee. "The Ethical Reaches of Authorship." South Atlantic Quarterly 95.4 (Fall 1996): 947-77.

Summary:

The authors critically assess the ways in which copyright law has been grounded in Romantic notions of author as a creative and individual genius. They see the notion that authors’ work should be protected by law as their intellectual property as problematic since (a) we know that our experiences and creative works are collaborative (example of Wordsworth collaborating with sis); and (b) copyright laws do not protect certain cultural works or practices considered “naturally occurring ‘raw materials’ (960), yet they protect companies or “inventors” that borrow cultural-driven images, themes, or herbal medications. For example, they draw attention to how indigenous cultures’ “bioknowledge”—knowledge of botanical and medicinal treatments—is not protected under copyright and has instead been exploited by pharmaceutical companies (with the exception of Shaman Pharmaceuticals and the 1993 “Mataatua Declaration on Cultural and Intellectual Property Rights of Indigenous Peoples” pp. 968-969). Using historical and modern examples of how copyright privileges a single creator, the authors argue how indigenous cultures and other individuals (like peasants, indigenous people, and women) are not recognized as contributors or collaborators; instead, their cultural knowledge or material products are borrowed and then copyrighted by the borrower. They conclude by arguing that “Rather than refiguring traditional knowledge as the product of solitary, originary genius, we may have to reimagine the familiar subject matter of Western intellectual property as the outcome of collective, collaborative social activity.

Methods:

· Use Wordsworth’s work as an example of collaborative work placed under a single name (950-953)

· Historicize copyright, highlighting how cultural ideologies of author are informed by movements (influenced by Wordsworth’s et al.), arguing that an author is a secular prophet and original genius (953-955).

· Cite copyright law and other legal documents, historicizing major copyright movements and illustrating how these laws extend upon traditional notions of “author” (953-9)

o 1710 Statute of Anne; Copyright Act of 1842; nongovernmental Brussels Congress on Literary and Artistic Property of 1858; International Literary Association 1878; first Act of the Berne Convention, 1886; 1971 Act of the Berne Convention; Annex to the General Agreement n Tarriffs and Trade: Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property (TRIPS), 1993 (this includes trademards, geographical designations, and patents, but does not include computer software, musical recordings, databases, or cultural stuff like sounds, stories, images);

· Uses examples of African mugs, Native American dream catchers, and Crazy Horse malt liquor as products that have been copyrighted by companies while the cultural influences offer no endorsement or receive any verbal or monetary credit (960-962).

· Uses examples of the exploitation of indigenous knowledge about botanical treatments, showing that companies have appropriated this knowledge for the profitable production of pharmaceutical drugs without acknowledging or monetarily benefiting the indigenous people (964-.

Quotable Quotes:

• “We inevitably draw on the work of others in our creative activities—if not contemporaries working in close proximity, then those working at some temporal remove whom we may or may not acknowledge as ‘influences.’ The laws of copyright encourage us to deny others’ contributions to our creative production by awarding the exclusive right to exploit it economically to ‘author’—understood…as essentially solitary originators” (951, italics in original).
• In reference to an African styled mug made in South Korea: “While the Western models of copyright to which Berne and TRIPs give international reach may provide little or no protection to elements of the traditional culture from which the motif was extracted, the marginal ‘value added’ of the designer of the mug itself would constitute original authorship, justifying a copyright in the result as a so-called derivative work” (960).