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Brief - "iP: YouTube, MySpace, Our Culture"; Prof. Madhavi Sunder; Feb 28, 2011

Posted By Joseph Poole, Mar 10, 2011

On Monday, February 28, Professor Madhavi Sunder (U.C. Davis School of Law) spoke at the UC Davis’ King Hall Law School about her new research on intellectual property, innovation, and culture. Professor Sunder introduced her new book iP: YouTube, MySpace, Our Culture and discussed its basic concepts.

Professor Sunder began with the story of her grandmother defying certain traditions in India and how those changes affected and created culture. She then gave a quick description of intellectual property and its purposes. She specifically pointed to the commonly recognized goal of progress and innovation. Professor Sunder criticized treating this goal as one simply promoting efficiency or maximization. Instead, she argued that because of its profound impact on culture, intellectual property should also reflect the cultural and democratic concerns that it impacts so heavily.

Professor Sunder believes that the goals of intellectual property law should be broadened to encourage both cultural development and freedom. Because of the information-sharing technologies that exist today, humans have a greater choice than ever before in what they view, how they act, and the knowledge they pursue. However, in intellectual property law, the focus is largely on what will generate the greatest level of creativity, or rather the greatest economic productivity. Professor Sunder argued that this view is too narrow and that policy makers should also take into consideration the impact of an intellectual property regime on quality of life. She argued that culture is more than just products: it includes “critical processes of creative and social interaction that promote our humanity.” 

Professor Sunder then analyzed two historical views of culture and submitted her own. First, she discussed culture as traditions and argued that this view is too limiting because it locks in culture as comprising only events of the past. If this were the case, new culture would require changes in tradition. In her mind, culture is much more fluid. Professor Sunder then analyzed culture as a commodity. She also rejected this view because perceiving culture as a commodity stagnates its living nature.

Instead, Professor Sunder argued that culture exists as a participatory community. This community is comprised of participation, livelihood, and shared meaning. To demonstrate her idea, Professor Sunder showed a youtube clip of “Sita Sings the Blues.” The film is an animated feature by Nina Paley. In it, Paley combines the events of the “Ramayana” with musical interludes voiced with tracks by Annette Hanshaw, a famous Jazz singer of the 1920s. Professor Sunder wanted to show how this combination and clash of global cultures created something that was truly Paley’s own. She argued that the movie would have had no meaning without the cultural connotations of the “Ramayana” and Annette Hanshaw. She further argued that such combinations should be freely allowed under intellectual property regimes because they produce something valuable.

Then, Professor Sunder broke down the benefits of cultural participation as she discussed them in her book, including: Liberty; Equality; Ethics; Critical thinking and democratic citizenship; Learning through play; Economic development; Mutual recognition; Mutual understanding. Profession Sunder argued that intellectual property should be regarded as tools instead of rights and ended by reflecting that just as the law of real property underwent a “social enlightenment” over the last 40 years, so, too, should we begin to study the social effects of intellectual property laws.