Intellectual Property and Semiotics: The Signs of the Times

Abstract

Cultural perspectives on law are a growing part of contemporary legal scholarship and, in particular, semiotics has been argued in interdisciplinary legal scholarship on intellectual property (IP) to be helpful in illuminating some of the intractable issues encountered in the laws governing copyright, trademarks, and the right of publicity. Semiotics seeks to understand the operation of a given system or process by observing the function of signification, expression, representation, and communication. Famous trademarks, well-known copyrighted works, and celebrity personalities can function like Barthesian myths with universal ideological codings that are recognized globally, enabling them to be read as polysemous texts that invite playful semiotic recodings and post-structural disruptions. The invocation of semiotics in the study of IP signs is intimately intertwined with the freedom of speech. Semiotic readings of IP signs invite us to enter a world of possibilities that explore a more nuanced interpretation of legal doctrine and legislative provisions.