American artist, activist and professor of Communication Studies
Kembrew McLeod
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Kembrew McLeod (2014)
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Born
| United States
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Occupation(s)
| Artist, activist, professor
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Kembrew McLeod
is an American artist, activist, and professor of
Communication Studies
at the
University of Iowa
.
He is best known as a
performance artist
or "media prankster" who filed an application in 1997 to register the phrase "
Freedom of Expression
" as a
trademark
in the United States. This phrase was the name of his zine and artist book series, and on January 6, 1998, McLeod was granted registration no. 2127381 in Class 16 (for "booklets in the field of creative writing").
McLeod received his PhD from
University of Massachusetts Amherst
, an MA from the
University of Virginia
, and a BS from
James Madison University
.
[1]
Dispute with AT&T
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McLeod sought registration of the phrase "Freedom of Expression" as a reflection on the use of
intellectual property
law to restrict cultural expression in U.S. society. In 2003, McLeod sent
AT&T
a
cease and desist
letter in response to an AT&T advertising campaign in college newspapers promoting a new long distance plan which used the phrase "freedom of expression".
[2]
McLeod claimed that the use by AT&T of his registered trademark could lead some consumers to infer a connection between his publication and AT&T.
The New York Times
later interviewed McLeod, and reported that his aim was "to object to corporate power over words, speech and even
ideas
. 'I do want to register my genuine protest that a big company that really doesn't represent freedom of expression is trying to appropriate this phrase,' he said."
Registration no. 2127381 was cancelled in October 2004 when McLeod did not lodge documentary evidence with the
United States Patent and Trademark Office
to demonstrate that "Freedom of Expression" had been used as a trademark.
Protesting Bill Clinton over Sister Souljah controversy
[
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On December 10, 2007, McLeod protested a Bill Clinton event in
Iowa City
, Iowa, dressed as a
robot
and demanding an apology for remarks made by Clinton in 1992 about controversial hip hop musician
Sister Souljah
.
[3]
Before being removed by security and as he was led away, McLeod tossed multi-colored flyers into the air which included the name of a website, mr-ifobca.org, standing for "Mad Robots in Favor of Bill Clinton Apologizing."
[4]
[5]
Other work
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McLeod's book built upon the themes raised by the AT&T event and develops a serious critique on a range of diverse topics such as
hip-hop
music and
sampling
, the patenting of seeds and human
genes
, folk and
blues
music, visual
collage
art,
electronic voting
, and computer software, among other things.
McLeod has also written music criticism for
Rolling Stone
,
The Village Voice
,
Spin
, and
Mojo
. He is the coproducer of a 2001
documentary film
on the music industry,
Money for Nothing: Behind the Business of Pop Music,
which he produced for the Media Education Foundation. He is currently working on another documentary on the history of sound collage, digital sampling, and intellectual property law, titled
Copyright Criminals: This Is a Sampling Sport.
He participated in the exhibition "Illegal Art: Freedom of Expression in the Corporate Age," which was hosted by the
San Francisco Museum of Modern Art
's Artist Gallery. In 2005, he helped co-found the Freedom of Expression® Security Consortium, which is dedicated to "Regulating Freedom of Expression in the Marketplace of Ideas". He also is co-editor (with
Ted Striphas
) of a 2006 special issue of the journal
Cultural Studies
on "The Politics of Intellectual Properties," which is available for free on the internet.
His book,
Freedom of Expression
, is available as a free PDF download with a
Creative Commons
license.
[6]
In 2012, one chapter from
Freedom of Expression
was used as the basis for two essays in the
United States Pirate Party
's book,
No Safe Harbor
.
[7]
In 2020, during the
COVID-19 Pandemic
, a video of Mcleod dancing to
Planet Rock
by
Afrika Bambaataa
went viral on
TikTok
.
[8]
See also
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References
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Further reading
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External links
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International
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National
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