The Routledge Companion to Research in the Arts

no CoPyright and no CuLtura L Cong Lomerates

Rosemary Coombe stresses that if

what is quintessentially human is the capacity to make meaning, challenge

meaning, and transform meaning, then we strip ourselves of our humanity

through overzealous application and continuous expansion of intellectual

property protections. dialogue involves reciprocity in communication: the

ability to respond to a sign with signs. What meaning does dialogue have

when we are bombarded with messages to which we cannot respond, signs

and images whose significations cannot be challenged and connotations we

cannot contest?

(Coombe 1998: 84–5)

The work of Rosemary Coombe is infused with the inspiring thought that

culture is not embedded in abstract concepts that we internalize, but in

the materiality of signs and texts over which we struggle and the imprint

of those struggles in consciousness. This ongoing negotiation and struggle

over meaning is the essence of dialogic practice. many interpretations of

intellectual property laws quash dialogue by affirming the power of corporate

actors to monologically control meaning by appealing to an abstract concept

of property. laws of intellectual property privilege monologic forms against

dialogic practice and create significant power differentials between social

actors engaged in hegemonic struggle.

(Coombe 1998: 86)

dialogic practice is a theoretically appealing ideal, but we know that when put
into practice, there is a risk of being overrun by armies of lawyers and, owing to our
self- made interferences, the judges will duly charge us for our creative impertinence.
nevertheless, in many cultures it was, and still is, an honour if another person takes your
work as a point of departure and polishes it further. This is not so in the contemporary
Western culture in which the productive creative dialogue is strictly confined by an
exacting system of sanctions. We have elevated the judges to the status of arbiters of
the progress of our cultural expressions and opinion forming. Their legal hold is that
they, exclusively, are the ones who are entitled to grant the production of that progress
to the ‘owners’ of artistic creative material. a society that is subjected to such bizarre
rules is being democratically disadvantaged.
most artists will not give much thought to the fact that during their creative
processes and their performances they are, par excellence, communicating meanings
that deeply influence the feelings of many in their audience and readership. however,
this is what happens and, for the most part, this process goes unnoticed. however,
what can be said, performed and expressed is the result of social, economic and cultural
struggle, which is sometimes vehement but mostly a matter of fact. some artists may
feel the need, through research based on their practice, to reflect on how they and
their colleagues are the targets of forces that try to steer their work in this rather than
in that direction. What may seem self- evident can be reflected on more clearly – a