McLeod, Kembrew 1970–

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MCLEOD, Kembrew 1970–

PERSONAL: Born 1970. Education: James Madison University, B.S., 1993; University of Virginia, M.A., 1995; University of Massachusetts—Amherst, Ph.D., 2000.

ADDRESSES: Office—Department of Communication Studies, 105 Becker Communication Studies Bldg., University of Iowa, Iowa City, IA 52242-1498. E-mail—[email protected].

CAREER: University of Massachusetts, Amherst, oralskills program consultant, 1998–99, visiting professor, 1999; University of Iowa, Iowa City, assistant professor of communications, 2000–. Producer of documentary films Money for Nothing: Behind the Business of Pop Music, 2002, and Copyright Criminals, 2005.

MEMBER: International Association for the Study of Popular Music, International Communication Association, National Communication Association.

AWARDS, HONORS: Rosa Luxemburg Award for Social Consciousness, New England Film and Video Festival, 2002, for Money for Nothing.

WRITINGS:

Owning Culture: Authorship, Ownership, and Property Law, Peter Lang (New York, NY), 2001.

Freedom of Expression: Overzealous Copyright Bozos and Other Enemies of Creativity, Doubleday (New York, NY), 2005.

Contributor to books, including Pop Music and the Press, edited by S. Jones, Temple University Press (Philadelphia, PA), 2002; Critical Cultural Policy: A Reader, edited by J. Lewis and T. Miller, Blackwell (Malden, MA), 2002; and Recyclables: Critical Approaches to Cultural Recycling, edited by T. Kendall. Contributor of articles and music criticism to periodicals, including Popular Music & Society, Electronic Book Review, Journal of Popular Music Studies, Popular Music, Journal of Communication, New York Times, Village Voice, and Rolling Stone.

WORK IN PROGRESS: Ill Communication: An Unintentional Beastie Boys Guide to Popular Culture; Do You Wanna Dance? Punk and Disco in 1977.

SIDELIGHTS: Communications professor Kembrew McLeod is known for his studies examining the ways in which artists establish ownership over their works. A music critic as well as a scholar, his works Owning Culture: Authorship, Ownership, and Property Law and Freedom of Expression: Overzealous Copyright Bozos and Other Enemies of Creativity trace the complications involved in establishing the rights of creative people to the product of their labor and their imaginations. "Who'da thunk that I would become a university professor after I failed my senior year of high school?" McLeod wrote in a biographical essay published on his home page. "Thanks to some inspiring teachers along the way, I decided to give the profession a try because it appeared to allow me the most freedom of any career option." "To use a Grateful Dead-invoking cliche (yecchhh)," he concluded, "it's been a long strange trip, one that includes dancing, deconstruction and—in one instance—a fellow grad student catching on fire. After five years in Iowa City chasing the children of the corn through the field of dreams, I still solomnly swear to put the 'ass' back in assistant professor."

McLeod's chosen topic in Owning Culture is the effect of the rapidly changing information distribution industry during the 1990s. "McLeod explores such diverse and disparate subjects as the trademarking of corporate logos," wrote William S. Walker in a Journal of Popular Culture review of the book, "the patenting of indigenous knowledge, and the restrictions placed on free expression by copyright protections." In fact, the author views copyright as less a legal device intended to protect an individual artist than as a way for companies to control property. "All intellectual property law, then, according to McLeod," Walker concluded, "forms a web of legal and extralegal restrictions that ultimately serve to reinforce the hegemony of American corporations."

Freedom of Expression takes McLeod's chosen subject a step further. "The notion of intellectual property," declared a Publishers Weekly contributor, "now extends well beyond digital music sampling to biology (gene patenting) and 'scents and gestures'—and laws governing it, the author says, are being wielded like a bludgeon." "McLeod ponders the conflict between traditions that have encouraged openness versus the modern slide toward monopoly protectionism," stated Vernon Ford in Booklist. "When privatization usurps the cultural commons," wrote a Kirkus Reviews contributor, "the free flow of ideas is impeded, and scientific research inhibited."