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Cultural Studies - A Routledge Journal, Boulder, CO (2026)

09/10/2026

We would like to share a retrospective on Eva Hemmungs Wirtén’s “Out of Sight and Out of Mind: On the Cultural Hegemony of Intellectual Property (Critique)”—included in Volume 20, Issue 2-3 (2006), a special issue on intellectual property—written by our social media editor, Lore FitzWhittemore:

Rather than directly addressing the construction and expansion of intellectual property regimes, Hemmungs Wirtén does so from the perspective of interrogating the dominant rhetorics of how scholars engage with critiques of intellectual property. The author identifies the hegemonic saturation of the terms “creativity,” including its entanglement with gendered configurations of authorship, and “free/dom”—for the purposes of recognizing “that these, far from being simple and universal categories, in fact are constructions that need to be further problematized and discussed” (p. 2).

Hemmungs Wirtén’s invitation to critique—as a verb—dominant modalities of critique—as a noun—is a reminder that discursive terrains are constructed and thus can be contested. Adherence to predominant forms of thinking and lineages of discussion may be useful for situating one’s work, but it is also important to question what remains presumed, absent, or overlooked.

Creativity continues to validate and valorize authorship. This organizing rhetoric persists today through criticisms of unauthorized data scraping, which is commonly positioned as reconfiguring and commodifying a creator’s creative efforts; what has been authored becomes aggregated. Allegations of infringement and unlawful access are levied, and institutions and organizations with the resources to litigate such claims become vested in reifying creativity and keeping it entangled with authorship, as authorship legally also constitutes their ownership. Public perception of data scraping as infringing on authorial rights can unintentionally fortify the systems of intellectual property protections that systemically exploit the very creators of such works.

Those who seek to heed Hemmungs Wirtén’s modeling of critiquing the critique should remain both critical and curious, willing to revisit the possibilities that have been forgotten and reimagine what could be.

“Out of Sight and Out of Mind: On the Cultural Hegemony of Intellectual Property (Critique)” can be read by all here: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/09502380500524145 ; free access is available through September 30th.

09/03/2026

We would like to share a retrospective on David Sanjek’s “Ridiculing the ‘White Bread Original’: The Politics of Parody and Preservation of Greatness in Luther Campbell a.k.a. Luke Skyywalker et al. v. Acuff-Rose Music, Inc.”—included in Volume 20, Issue 2-3 (2006), a special issue on intellectual property—written by our social media editor, Lore FitzWhittemore:

Sanjek’s position is best stated in his own words: “My conviction is that unless or until the current laws of copyright recognize, respect, and protect the kind of music-making that permits that very culture to ‘version’ away, a considerable set of legal, practical, and creative obstacles remain very much in the way of all cultural producers” (p. 269).

This imperative is interwoven through Sanjek’s analysis—which centers the titular 1994 Supreme Court decision: Campbell v. Acuff-Rose Music, Inc. and considers how Roy Orbison's "Oh, Pretty Woman" was parodized in 2 Live Crew’s “Pretty Woman” and licensed for use in the films Pretty Woman (1990) and Blue Velvet (1986). In surmising Justice David Souter’s remarks on the case, Sanjek considers the instability of artistic intention in assessing parody and cautions against the notion of a singular interpretation of a source work. This case examines the cultural imbalance between historic and commodified appropriation of African American culture and sampling as a way to reconfigure and critique, in this instance, the ‘white bread’ original.

Questions of intention, interpretation, and recognition remain of critical importance in the contemporary moment. The internet broadly and social media specifically allow for the decontextualization and fragmentation of cultural moments, facilitating possibilities of remix while simultaneously often obscuring the initial source. Thus, Sanjek’s considerations help inform current questions regarding who is visible in cultural proliferation—as distinct from those who participate or facilitate cultural production.

Sanjek concludes by describing the function of ‘biting criticism’ or ‘criticism with a vengeance,’ not merely operationalized ‘criticism’ that often confers praise and contributes to profits: “The support espoused by the US Supreme Court for derivative works and the admiration of successful works of transformation, however, sanction an important view that Courts are not mind-readers [...] A creator’s intent need not correspond with either a consumer’s or a parodist’s understanding of a specific work. The permission that inheres in Souter’s language as to the act of transformation and the critique it raises holds out a range of possible directions to be taken up by other creators” (p. 279).

Sanjek’s article can be read by all here: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/09502380500495742 ; free access is available through Sept. 30th.

In closing, we would also like to take a moment to honor the life and legacy of David Sanjek, who passed away in 2011.

08/27/2026

We would like to share a retrospective on Gilbert B. Rodman and Cheyanne Vanderdonckt’s “Music for Nothing or, I Want My MP3: The Regulation and Recirculation of Affect”—included in Volume 20, Issue 2-3 (2006), a special issue on intellectual property—written by our social media editor, Lore FitzWhittemore:

In this article, Rodman and Vanderdonckt challenge the economic defenses against file sharing that are often circulated by the music industry through two primary arguments: (1) that such approaches are too economic, devaluing and obscuring affective ways of sharing music; and (2) that the commonplace justification that filesharing harms artists is not economic enough, which downplays the complexities of such financial practices that disproportionately profit labels over artists.

To support their discussion of the former, the authors opt for the following approach: “we want to share a few stories that underscore the affective aspects of musical fandom and filesharing: stories that disrupt the industry’s facile equation of filesharing with theft, and that remind us that cultural ownership involves much more than just a legalistic relationship between people and texts. While these are personal anecdotes, they nonetheless describe forms of musical sharing that are far from unique” (p. 248).

The assemblage of five anecdotes offer alternative uses of filesharing that counter industrial narrativizing that filesharing is utilized to circumvent paying for file downloads—or, as it would perhaps be in the contemporary moment, avoiding ad-supported tiers of music streaming or the cost of an ongoing subscription. Through this collection of anecdotes, the authors share insights that compare filesharing to other mediated practices like creating custom playlists on cassette tapes or CDs, demonstrate how people use filesharing to expand the circulation of favorite songs and artists, and describe how some artists choose to make some MP3 files freely available to introduce their music to prospective future fans.

In this instance, a small collection of anecdotes indicates tensions between the industrial configuration of filesharing practices and its uses in actuality. The former invokes a presumably lost customer who refuses to compensate musical artists to keep a few dollars in their account, lamented by the music industry. The anecdotes destabilize this cohesive rhetoric, indicating alternative ways that filesharing can help sustain cultural dissemination and music distribution.

Rodman and Vanderdonckt’s article demonstrates how anecdote can be an effective way for scholars to elucidate frictions between totalizing industrial commonsense and everyday cultural practice.

“Music for Nothing or, I Want My MP3: The Regulation and Recirculation of Affect” can be read by all here: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/09502380500495734 ; free access is available through Sept. 30th.

08/25/2026

We would like to share a retrospective on Jane M. Gaines’ “Early Cinema’s Heyday of Copying: The Too Many Copies of L’Arroseur Arrosé (The Waterer Watered)”—included in Volume 20, Issue 2-3 (2006), a special issue on intellectual property—written by our social media editor, Lore FitzWhittemore:

Gaines considers the multiple singularity of L’Arroseur Arrosé through distinguishing between duplication and remaking. The former—also known as duping—refers to reprints as replicated copies, whereas the latter includes processes of restaging and reshooting. Gaines frames the discussion through the following impetus: “I am attempting to see this less as a question of the absence of regulation than as the remarkable presence of so many competing signs” (p. 231). Such an analysis is productive for any contemporary scholar seeking to engage with questions of copying, especially those that go beyond direct replication.

Following reading Gaines’ article, I found myself thinking about the construction of copying in relation to today’s contemporary “remix culture”—to borrow a term from Lawrence Lessig—especially in relation to YouTube videos. Many creators copy other media for the purposes of creativity, commentary, and critique; some video essayists prefer reproducing exact clips to aid their analysis, whereas other parodists or creators might recreate a scene for purposes of commentary or cultural reimaginings. Increasingly, YouTube’s video ecosystem is moderated through automated processes of screening, which seeks to identify copies of copyrighted materials like songs or snippets from video games, films, or television series.

Gaines describes how copyright challenges were strategically deployed—or withheld—to assert corporate power and control: “Copyright, we would do well to remember, is only a defensible monopoly if you have the money and the influence to plan and make good on a threat” (p. 237). Likewise, such automated assessments of digital copying on YouTube function similarly. Some reuse of copyright content is permitted if it is considered beneficial for the rightsholder and does not diminish profitability, as seen through the number of fan edits and video essays found on the platform. However, there are many instances where the very same rightsholders can deny and take down content that challenges their preferred circulations of culture, with few pathways for appealing such restrictions and little regard for fair use defenses.

Gaines’ “Early Cinema’s Heyday of Copying: The Too Many Copies of L’Arroseur Arrosé” can be read by all here: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/09502380600551485 ; free access is available through Sept. 30th.

08/21/2026

We would like to share a retrospective on Steve Jones’ “Reality© and Virtual Reality©: When Virtual and Real Worlds Collide”—included in Volume 20, Issue 2-3 (2006)—written by our social media editor, Lore FitzWhittemore:

Jones argues that the intellectual property logics that constrain reality should not be automatically imposed upon virtual reality (VR) environments. To illustrate various ways that VR departs from lived experiences, Jones describes the Virtual Harlem project, founded by Bryan Carter at the University of Missouri and supported through the efforts of the Electronic Visualization Laboratory at the University of Illinois Chicago. Virtual Harlem recreated Harlem, New York during the neighborhood’s 1920s and 1930s Renaissance, with the goal being “to provide a visual context to the existing histories, literature, and music of the Harlem Renaissance” (213).

Virtual environments necessitate both creators and users to reframe their practices, decentering the narrative and visual framing common to other mediums.

Creators must impose boundaries upon the project, as environments can be multidirectionally expanded. As Jones describes: “One of the interesting elements of cultural heritage projects in immersive VR environments is that the building of them can, in a sense, never end” (223). Creators must also be aware of the intellectual property implications of, for instance, recreating an exploratory environment based upon a historical photo, with the latter inheriting its own copyright protections.

The immersive nature of such environments empowers the user to both decide upon their own visual framing and engage with the space and any narrative possibilities it holds based upon their own preferred temporalities.

The matter of adherence is central in Jones’ argument. Processes of creating and participating in VR worlds do not follow the logics of reality, and thus: “Virtual worlds give us an opportunity to entirely reconsider both ‘real’ property and intellectual property, and in fact to allow the inhabitants of those worlds to themselves determine both the meaning and value of intellectual property” (224).

While the legal perspectives constraining VR have been increasingly codified since the publication of Jones’ article—for instance, the current third edition of the Compendium of U.S. Copyright Office Practices classifying “virtual reality environments" as audiovisual works—the possibilities for cultural heritage through the medium persist. To provide just two examples:
► Scenes from the Harlem Renaissance remain playable through the ongoing efforts of Carter and the scholars and students committed to Virtual Harlem: https://www.ibryancarter.com/projects
► The Phoenix of Gaza XR preserves the memory and documents the resilience of Palestine: https://www.gazaxr.com/

“Reality© and Virtual Reality©” can be read by all here: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/09502380500495692 ; free access is available through Sept. 30th.

08/13/2026

We would like to share a retrospective on Andrew Herman, Rosemary J. Coombe, and Lewis Kaye’s “Your Second Life? Goodwill and Performativity of Intellectual Property in Online Digital Gaming”—included in Volume 20, Issue 2-3—written by our social media editor, Lore FitzWhittemore:

It has been two decades since this article was published, and the necessity of performativity of goodwill by gaming companies in relation to their strategies of intellectual property management persists. Herman, Coombe, and Kaye establish Linden Labs' decision to enable players to retain intellectual property rights to their in-game creations—as facilitated through constitutional dimensions such as the Terms of Service—as a performative speech act intended to accumulate goodwill for the company. Player-creators are extended some agency but remain dependent on Linden Labs and the corporately-maintained existence of Second Life.

In a contemporary context, goodwill was central to the contentious events that led to Wizards of the Coast releasing their Dungeons & Dragons System Reference Document, which enables third-party creation and monetization, under a Creative Commons BY-4.0 license in January 2023. This was not originally intended by the company, who initially proposed revising the terms of their Open Game License to be more monetarily advantageous for the company; however, a leaked draft of those revisions led to swift backlash from the player and creator communities that resulted in the adoption of a CC license as a means of repairing trust.

Yet, despite usage of the System Reference Document being guaranteed through an open and external license, Wizards of the Coast still establishes and carefully maintains boundaries of access and authorship through demarcating only portions of the game as being available to third-party creators and the expansion of paratextual materials like blog posts and additional policies to more thoroughly define and confine use. Herman et. al's application of "goodwill" nuances these producer/consumer interactions.

“Your Second Life?” can be read by all here: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/09502380500495684 ; free access is available through September 30th.

08/11/2026

We would like to share a retrospective on McKenzie Wark’s “Information Wants to Be Free (But Is Everywhere in Chains)”—included in Volume 20, Issue 2-3—written by our social media editor, Lore FitzWhittemore:

Wark contends that new forms of private property initiate new class conflicts: (1) the privatization of land catalyzes a pastoralist economy, where farmers pay rent to a pastoralist class; (2) the aggregation of capital into private ownership over productive assets like workspaces, tools, and machinery becomes central to a capitalist economy, where surplus value from labor of the working class is consolidated by the capitalist class; and (3) the ability to codify information as intellectual property for purposes of ownership sustains a vectoralist economy, where the hacker class produces information through creativity and innovation that is then commodified by a vectorialist class.

In Wark’s configuration, the hacker class spans traditional disciplinary boundaries, encompassing scientists as well as artistic professions like musicians, writers, filmmakers, and so forth. Scientific discoveries are recognized through patents, the value of artistic creativity is codified through copyright, and both forms of information become coherent as private property. The vectoralist exploits these efforts by “control[ling] the vectors along which information circulates. They own the means of realizing the value of information. Information emerges as a concept precisely because it can be quantified, valued and owned” (p. 172). Bounding information as intellectual property imposes a manufactured scarcity upon it; infrastructure like streaming platform login pages and checkout sequences to purchase access to virtual goods like eBooks obscures the minimal costs of digital reproduction.

Wark’s framework offers productive possibilities for understanding the destabilization of intellectual property in contemporary contentions, especially through increasing access to generative artificial intelligence. Information is subjected to intensified abstraction; inputted training data is collected and aggregated without permission, and many countries currently maintain that AI-generated outputs are ineligible for traditional intellectual property protections. In this configuration, what is being marketed is the aspirational ideal of being able to produce statistically-amalgamated “information” based upon the user’s prompt, further subjugating the hacker class. A productive question, then, for scholars to contend with is whether this form of accessing information aligns with understood notions of the vectoralist class—or if companies controlling AI models that displace hacker labor are perhaps indicative of a new form of an exploitative ruling class.

Wark’s “Information Wants to Be Free (But Everywhere In Chains)” can be read by all here: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/09502380500495668 ; free access is available through Sept. 30th.

08/07/2026

We would like to share a retrospective on Adrian Johns' “Intellectual Property and the Nature of Science”—included in Volume 20, Issue 2-3 (2006), a special issue on intellectual property—written by our social media editor, Lore FitzWhittemore:

In this article, Johns advocates for a historical perspective in conceptualizing the purpose and function of patents in relation to scientific discovery and innovation. His analysis is grounded in critiques of patenting practices by economist Arnold Plant in the first half of the 1900s, scientist and philosopher Michael Polanyi in mid-twentieth century, and information theorist and cyberneticist Norbert Wiener in the latter half of the century. In doing so, Johns acknowledges challenges and alternatives to dominant—and, at least in part due to standardization established in the Berne process, international—policies regarding patents. Reconfigurations as proposed by Plant, Polanyi, and Wiener foreground questions regarding (1) the public good and communal purpose of scientific discovery; and (2) the place of the individual as innovator, at the intersection of discourses regarding the purpose of patents being to motivate romanticized and individualized innovation, whether science can be individual or if it is inherently a collective practice, and the notion of the individual employee’s innovations being subsumed into corporate or governmental structures and secrecy.

In his conclusion, Johns writes: “When we talk about intellectual property, we are necessarily historians for the duration. We have to be, because the very concept involves notions of origination and authorship that demand excavation of the past and narrative explanation of its relation to the present. [...] We need to look both more broadly at the extent to which the current culture of intellectual property is a historical product, and more narrowly at how it was in fact built, fought over, established, and maintained. Whenever we look at intellectual property, then, we are always perforce historians; but we might be well advised to reconsider what kind of historians we really ought to be” (p. 162).

Thus, twenty years later, this piece indicates a cyclical imperative for scholars: to continue historicizing, which decades later comes to be a historical artifact indicating how perspectives were interrelated and perceptions were normalized at the time. This lineage demonstrates crucial reminders that many issues of the contemporary moment are not singular and that alternative possibilities found in historical imaginaries can elucidate fissures and tensions in the systems we have inherited.

Johns’ “Intellectual Property and the Nature of Science” can be read by all here: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/09502380500495643 ; free access is available through September 30th.

08/05/2026

We would like to share a retrospective on Ted Striphas and Kembrew McLeod's “Strategic Improprieties: Cultural Studies, The Everyday, and the Politics of Intellectual Properties”—included in Volume 20, Issue 2-3—written by our social media editor, Lore FitzWhittemore:

In this introduction, Striphas and McLeod introduce the principle objectives for Cultural Studies' first special issue dedicated to the politics of intellectual properties:
(1) to explore how intellectual property influences professional activities for cultural studies scholars;
(2) to historicize cultural studies' past lineage with intellectual property;
(3) to consider what a cultural studies approach offers to discussions regarding the politics of intellectual property;
(4) to encourage interdisciplinary engagement.

Two decades later, this special issue affords scholars the opportunity to better comprehend the scholarly foundations that inform our contemporary understandings of intellectual property. Reflection offers us the chance to identify what has been lost, glimpses into reasonings that became standardized, and the possibility to remember alternatives that never came to be.

One of the interventions that Striphas and McLeod put forth in this piece is encouraging cultural studies scholars without formal legal degrees to interrogate the cultural dimensions of intellectual property: "A task that lies before us — a task that partly inspires this issue — thus consists of claiming the authority to speak about, and perhaps more importantly on behalf of, the law without being of the law per se.” Scholars across disciplines with varying areas of study have sought to do just this over the past two decades, and both public and academic awareness of intellectual property often go beyond how it is legally prescribed. Franchises are now referred to as “IP,” and debates about patent law can go viral on Instagram.

Furthermore, we have, perhaps, reached another inflection point regarding the purpose and politics of intellectual property as our legal systems reckon with questions regarding what creations, and thus whose, should be afforded protection—particularly as large-scale computational models consume unprecedented amounts of scraped training data and generative artificial intelligence produces artifacts across mediums. Understanding the interwoven lattice of legislation, regulation (or lack thereof), and implementation of contemporary intellectual property requires the interdisciplinary collaboration that Striphas and McLeod advocate for. This introduction is a crucial reminder for scholars to be: (1) mindful of the ways that intellectual property is legally and systemically prescribed in ways that can be obscured; and (2) curious regarding the ways that interactions with intellectual property can shape everyday experiences with culture.

“Strategic Improprieties: Cultural Studies, The Everyday, and the Politics of Intellectual Properties” can be read by all here: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/09502380500495635 ; free access is available to subscribers and non-subscribers alike through September 30th.

07/30/2026

Two decades ago, Cultural Studies published Volume 20, Issue 2-3, a special issue co-edited by Ted Striphas and Kembrew McLeod on the theme of intellectual property. One objective of the special issue was to encourage an interdisciplinary interrogation of the politics of and everyday interactions with intellectual property—referring to copyrights, trademarks, patents, publicity rights, and moral rights. This scope included how intellectual property influences scholarly possibilities, as well as what a cultural studies perspective has to offer to conversations surrounding intellectual property.

Over the coming weeks, we will share retrospectives on this special issue—written by our social media editor, Lore FitzWhittemore—that place its articles in dialogue with contemporary standings and contentions of intellectual property.

Concurrent with this series of posts, Taylor & Francis has granted us permission to provide free public access to the issue through September 30th, 2026. As a result, we invite you to read and engage with the articles featured in this special issue, including:

1. Introduction - "Strategic Improprieties: Cultural Studies, The Everyday, and the Politics of Intellectual Properties" by Ted Striphas and Kembrew McLeod: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/09502380500495635

2. "Intellectual Property and the Nature of Science" by Adrian Johns: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/09502380500495643

3. "Information Wants to Be Free (But Is Everywhere In Chains)” by McKenzie Wark: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/09502380500495668

4. "Your Second Life? Goodwill and the Performativity of Intellectual Property in Online Digital Gaming" by Andrew Herman, Rosemary J. Coombe, and Lewis Kaye: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/09502380500495684

5. "Reality© and Virtual Reality©: When Virtual and Real Worlds Collide" by Steve Jones: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/09502380500495692

6. "Early Cinema's Heyday of Copying: The Too Many Copies of L'Arroseur Arrosé (The Waterer Watered)" by Jane M. Gaines: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/09502380600551485

7. "Music for Nothing or, I Want My MP3: The Regulation and Recirculation of Affect" by Gilbert B. Rodman and Cheyanne Vanderdonckt: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/09502380500495734

8. "Ridiculing the 'White Bread Original': The Politics of Parody and Preservation of Greatness in Luther Campbell a.k.a. Luke Skywalker et al. v. Acuff-Rose Music, Inc" by David Sanjek: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/09502380500495742

9. "Out of Sight and Out of Mind: On the Cultural Hegemony of Intellectual Property (Critique)" by Eva Hemmungs Wirtén: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/09502380500524145

10. "Afterword: Critical Information Studies: A Bibliographic Manifesto" by Siva Vaidhyanathan: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/09502380500521091

11. "Just Say No: Negativland's No Business" by Patricia R. Zimmermann: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/09502380500521117

Regardless of whether you currently maintain a Cultural Studies subscription, you can read all of the above articles through September 30th. We hope you find these foundational perspectives useful for thinking through the complexity of the current status of intellectual property rights.

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