Take care. In reading this article, you may be in receipt of stolen goods. In fact, the organising committee for a certain upcoming sporting event has decided it would be “disproportionate” to prosecute the author of a book called Olympic Mind Games for breach of copyright. But, under no less than two acts of British parliament, it could if it wanted to.
When it discovered that Robert Ronson’s children’s science-fiction novel was to be published, the organising committee for the previously mentioned happening sent him an email asking that he should use neither the O-word nor the expressions “London 2012, or 2012 etc” in the title. The committee was able to do so under statutes passed in 1995 and 2006, which in effect turn all the elements of its title into a trademark.
In claiming copyright on a word, the organisation dedicated to the promotion of the competition to be held two years into the next decade is both following and extending a dangerous trend. As long ago as 1991, the official British artist of the first Gulf war, John Keane, faced protests and legal threats from the Disney corporation for having painted a picture of the devastation of a Kuwait beach which included a Mickey Mouse doll.
Another British artist, David Haslam, faced legal action from the owners of the copyright on Noddy, and the American artist Rick Rush was taken to court for painting a picture of Tiger Woods.
In several of these cases, corporations were acting to protect what they saw as their commercial interests. The e-mail to Robert Ronson was written by the Olympic organising committee’s manager of brand protection, concerned to “ensure that there was no confusion” as to whether the novel was “an official licenced product”, presumably in case the committee seeks to declare Ian McEwan or Martin Amis official novelist to the 2012 Olympics at some point.
It’s not just that the idea of copyrighting an entry in the English dictionary, or someone’s face, haircut or name, is ridiculous. There is an issue of principle. By declaring images, titles and now words to be ownable brands, these various organisations and individuals are contributing to an increased commodification and thus privatisation of materials previously agreed to be in the public domain. For scientists, this constrains the use of public and published knowledge, up to and including the human genome. For artists, it implies that the only thing you can do with subject matter is to sell it.
As a consequence, people’s view of what representation does becomes narrowly literal. Presumably, the Disney corporation felt that John Keane must have been either denigrating or exploiting its product when he used a doll on a beach to comment on the ironies of war. Most expression involves reference to something real in the world. Most of our “experience” and indeed our “imagination” are formed from the image-making of others. Writers and other artists are rightly concerned about protecting their own copyright, but they should be equally concerned with the shrinking of the public domain. Ronson’s refusal to be cowed into changing the title of his novel is a victory for the idea that there is more to free expression than the right to advertise.
The Guardian
