August 22, 2006
Director of Media Relations
413/542-8417
AMHERST, Mass.—In recognition of Constitution Day, independent documentary filmmaker and media studies scholar Kembrew McLeod will present a multimedia program titled “Culture, Inc.: How Intellectual Property Erodes Freedom of Expression” at 7:30 p.m. on Monday, Sept. 18, in the Cole Assembly Room in Converse Hall at Amherst College. Cole Assembly Room is wheelchair accessible. Sponsored by the Amherst College President’s Office and presented by the Amherst College Library, the event is free and open to the public. A reception will follow.
McLeod is the author of Freedom of Expression®: Overzealous Copyright Bozos and other Enemies of Creativity (2005), which received the 2006 American Library Association Oboler Award for the best published scholarship in the area of intellectual freedom. A professor of communication studies at the University of Iowa, McLeod received his doctoral degree from the University of Massachusetts. He is known also for such “media pranks” as filing a trademark on the phrase “freedom of expression” in 1998 and auctioning his soul in a glass jar on eBay.
The presentation will explore the impact of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (1998) and intellectual property law in general, in such diverse areas as genetics, art and music, farming, academic research, publishing and teaching. McLeod is currently producing a documentary film of Freedom of Expression® (in conjunction with the Media Education Foundation in Northampton), which relates to copyright and free speech. He is also working on a feature length documentary film on the history of sound collage and sampling called Copyright Criminals: This is a Sampling Sport. McLeod will show brief excerpts from each film during his multimedia lecture.
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