Kembrew McLeod

Intellectual Property Law and Culture, Popular Culture, Popular Music, Media Industries

143 BCSB
phone (319) 335-0582
click here to e-mail Professor McLeod

Kembrew McLeod is an independent documentary filmmaker and a media studies scholar at the University of Iowa whose work focuses on both popular music and the cultural impact of intellectual property law. Associate Professor McLeod has written refereed journal articles on copyright and music, and has published two books on the subject: Owning Culture: Authorship, Ownership and Intellectual Property Law (Lang, 2001) and Freedom of Expression®: Overzealous Copyright Bozos and Other Enemies of Creativity (Doubleday, 2005), which received the Oboler book award from the American Library Association. McLeod's documentary, Money For Nothing: Behind the Business of Pop Music (2000), was programmed at a variety of film festivals, including the 2002 South By Southwest Film Festival and the 2002 New England Film and Video Festival, where it received the Rosa Luxemburg Award for Social Consciousness. He is currently working on a feature length documentary about digital sampling titled Copyright Criminals: This is a Sampling Sport, as well as a second documentary, Freedom of Expression®: Resistance and Repression in the Age of Intellectual Property, which focuses on free speech and fair use. He is an occasional music journalist whose pieces have appeared in Rolling Stone, Mojo, Spin, The Village Voice and the New Rolling Stone Album Guide (Fireside, 2005). Additionally, McLeod was involved in Carrie McLaren's traveling “Illegal Art” show, which traveled to New York, Chicago, and Washington, D.C., and was hosted by the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art’s Artist Gallery in 2003. His scholarly and creative work can be accessed at kembrew.com.

Selected Publications

Honors and Awards

2006 - Oboler Award for Best Published Scholarship in the Area of Intellectual Freedom. Awarded by the American Library Association for Freedom of Expression®: Overzealous Copyright Bozos and Other Enemies of Creativity.

2002 - Rosa Luxemburg Award for Social Consciousness. Awarded at the 2002 New England Film and Video Festival for Money for Nothing: Behind the Business of Pop Music (K. McLeod, Producer).

Publications
Books

McLeod, K. (2007). Freedom of Expression®: Resistance and Repression in the Age of Intellectual Property. Revised paperback edition. University of Minnesota Press.

McLeod, K. (2006). Intellectual Property Versus Free Expression: Does Copyright Kill Free Speech? Translated into Japanese.

McLeod, K. (2005). Freedom of Expression®: Overzealous Copyright Bozos and Other Enemies of Creativity. Random House/Doubleday.

McLeod, K. (2001). Owning Culture: Authorship, Ownership and Intellectual Property Law. In Popular Culture and Everyday Life Series, T. Miller (Series Ed.), Peter Lang Publishers.

Edited Journals

Co-edited with T. Striphas. (2006). “The Politics of Intellectual Properties,” a special issue of the journal Cultural Studies, 20, 2-3.

Articles: Refereed

McLeod, K. (2006). Registracija Svobode Izrazanja®/Trademarking Freedom of Expression® (Slovenian translation). Maska, 21, 98-99, 82-95.

T. Striphas & K. McLeod (2006). Strategic Improprieties: Cultural Studies, the Everyday, and Intellectual Property Law. Cultural Studies, 20, 2-3, 119-144.

McLeod, K. (2005). MP3s Are Killing Home Taping: The Rise of Internet Distribution and Its Challenge to the Major Label Music Monopoly. Journal of Popular Music & Society, 28, 4, 521-532.

McLeod, K. (2005). Confessions of an Intellectual (Property): Danger Mouse, Mickey Mouse, Sonny Bono and My Long and Winding Path as an Activist-Scholar. Journal of Popular Music & Society, 28, 1, 79-92.

McLeod, K. (2003). Cease and Desist: Freedom of Expression® in the Age of Intellectual Property, POROI, 2, 2, November.

McLeod, K. (2003). Intellectual Property Law, Freedom of Expression and the Web. Electronic Book Review, September.

McLeod, K. (2002). Making the Video: Constructing An Effective Counter-Hegemonic Message In Only Forty Nine Minutes, Journal of Popular Music Studies, 14, 1, 79-88.

McLeod, K. (2001). One and a Half Stars: A Critique of Rock Criticism in North America, Popular Music, 20/21, 47-60.

McLeod, K. (2001). Genres, Sub-Genres, Sub-Sub-Genres, etc.: Sub-Genre Naming In Electronic/Dance Music, Journal of Popular Music Studies, 13, 59-76.

McLeod, K. (1999). Authenticity Within Hip-Hop and Other Cultures Threatened With Assimilation, Journal of Communication, 49, 134-150.

Book Chapters: Invited

McLeod, K. (2002). Musical Production, Copyright and the Private Ownership of Culture. In J. Lewis & T. Miller (Eds.), Critical Cultural Policy: A Reader, Malden, MA: Blackwell, 240-252.

McLeod, K. (2002). Gender and Rock Criticism. In S. Jones (Ed.), Pop Music & The Press, Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 93-113.

McLeod, K. (2002). The History and Politics of Hip-Hop Journalism. In S. Jones (Ed.), Pop Music & The Press, Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 156-170.