Relinquish Intellectual Property
Author(s): Lisa Samuels
Reviewed work(s):
Source: New Literary History, Vol. 33, No. 2, Anonymity (Spring, 2002), pp. 357-374
Published by: The Johns Hopkins University Press
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20057728 .
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Intellectual
Relinquish1
Lisa
Property2
Samuels*
"No mind
the name
of
worthy
ever
a
reached
conclusion"3
If
essay
this4
appearance
Treating
unsuspicious
we
"ideas"
to
appears
own
my
represent5
false.
is8 undoubtedly
verbal
ideation?the
word9?as
as we
our
minds10
clogs
dialogue,
call
and
"ours,"11
the
falsifies
its
idea,7
original6
"property" obstructs
static
try to delineate
circumstances
of12
knowledge.13
of Wisconsin-Milwaukee
University
NOTES
1
Let me
start by quoting
a slightly altered
of the original
version
essay,
long ago relinquished:
Intellectual
Relinquish
Property
"No mind
of the name
worthy
ever
reached
a
conclusion"
This
That
in this essay,
I'm driven
word
forces.
on
words
is an original
assertion
verbal
seeing
and
has
been
to write
"original,"
consequences:
* I thank
three
know who
you
and
and
lightning,
a
possessiveness
it obstructs
friends
are.
this
for our
rewrites
of
letter
Every
is continuing
and
as
ideation
the material
our
Though
etration
idea.
is misleading.
essay
because
"property."
idea.
every
insights
though
our
about
unparanoid
on
this
to be
of
often
own
call
words
ideational
has
we
terms,
itself
the
those
is not
learn
at least
three
our
"owned."
imaginative
and
works
intercourse,
every
by myriad
attendant
the obstructions
In cultural
Language
sometimes
have
we
like
keyboard,
constructed
pen
ideas
negative
our
clogs
to this essay. You
for past and current
responses
colleagues
to cite as I do.
thank New Literary History for allowing me
and
I also
New Literary History, 2002, 33: 357-374
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All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
358
NEW
minds
as we
strive
and
is false
"ours,"
The
textual
to delineate
to the
we
ways
credit
the
of
right-to-ownership
critical
citations
impressively
pedantic)
in time
than,
say, one
on what
last hundred
builds
years
in the
we
really
credited?shouldn't
conditions
we
credit
reflected
Precisely.
assert
that we
lights up
This
blurriness
words
the hazards
or
over
and
Think
of
bricks
do
a kind
has
the
his
writing
that
figures
be acknowledged.
to
it is logically
untenable
a
idea-source
from
particular
needn't
of working
benefits
Our
we
again
thought
that?
and
and
trees.
if
is
of Usucapi?
attitude
student
discovering
graduate
and
encounter,
is one
of
books,
redescriber
every
created
who
can we
a
years
of his mind
of
distinguishing
minds.
Over
that
whenever
punctiliously
have passed,
and he
Now
capable
in our own
instead
treatment.
writers
footnoted
is part
what we
are
what
and
the
he was
When
influence.
thought
consume
We
all
the present?
How
to me
admitted
that he
Foucault's
Foucauldian
ensure
of
once
A
colleague
towards
ideational
property.
for example,
he
Foucault,
to sustain
and
in previous
hundreds.
so
be considered
it must
to
want
it and
a writer
for
was written
is transhistorical?and
property
in
believe
call
or,
old-fashioned,
(almost
striking
when
the author
footnotes
something
hundred
written
years. Yet everything
alternatively,
further
back
If intellectual
idea we
serve
writing
mostly
In current
essays
other's
living
be most
HISTORY
of knowing.
idea-holders.
to
tend
each
of a particular
nature
static
the
circumstances
LITERARY
materials
learn
require
that
with
a
generative
the thinking
of
fluidity
is
thinking
we'd
for example,
of
like
"fuzzy
logic,"
to
to
out.
to
be
taken
be
able
We
with
the
best
carry
computers
profess
we
that
is known
and
that
"best" differently,
(while
interpret
thought
dynamic.
of
ideas
or
or for selective
still standing
for mastery
anti-mastery,
subjectivity,
can stand
as the unattributed
so Arnold's
in for others',
wise passiveness
to show),
to Wordsworth
in this last clause
of mine
but
allusion
ought
we
of static objects
of thought-property
that
the creation
process.
stymie
to loosen
of opportunity
the bonds
of
intellectual
We
have
plenty
we're
and
and as the Internet
continues
property,
nervous
to
their
ideational
be
about
ways
can
default
email's
So
be
there
setting:
are difficulties.
for
punished
happens
creative
their
already,
books
and
And
writers
with
an
who
everyone
as
the
property
to be
rights,
about
find
new
visions
of
what
are
to
writers
thinking
obviously,
of
lack
that
Well,
by
compensation?
of most
rewards
for
the production
a
different
"useful"
can mark
an hour
of
the
nor
classroom
pages
even
from
like
products
difference
about
someone
attest.
might
an hour
between
software
in cost
time.
for written
compensation
compensation,
who
copies
need
people
new
subject").
First and most
of most
and
of
"no
We
vocation
teach
attorney
disappearance
about
writing
let
constructed.
and
expand
is
rights
explicit
an ideal
I could
said to be positing
I
realize
that
be
relationship
possible:
as
we were
scene
us as
in a Socratic
word
users,
among
though
thinking
at one
to see who
look
another
is
of
and
could
(think
talking
simply
those
be
to
in
I am
productions.
not
advocating
I am
But
the
not
digital
rights management?
for
else's
book
(broadly
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All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
market
defined)
and pay
sure
be
distribution
fees!
appropriate
from
giving
359
PROPERTY
INTELLECTUAL
RELINQUISH
I'm
to notify
author
here
with
and/or
the
concerned
publisher
to be
benefits
that our production
of ideas
and
the pretense
up
our
sources
are
all
and
that we really
acknowledge
as
to do or be either.
it were
though
possible
as porous
our own
of a
of writing
matrices
pieces
continuing
Recognizing
we would
so
to
one
as
be
inclined
view
each
not,
perhaps,
interchange,
some
last word.
gained
words
is original
and
of plagiarism,
innocent
so enamored
Nor
is "natural,"
the
after
it became
1980s,
and
analytical
up as God's
could
have
our
critical
worked
seem
to have
notion
it to
internalized
thought,
say in one
by plagiarism.
Nothing
at the end of
in Yemen
Living
was a culture
in which
heavily
akin
Islamic
to
to
oneself
setting
moreover
that one
blasphemy,
and
terms,
one's
culture
than to replicate
its
in many
of the world,
parts
mostly
so it
is a very strange
notion.
And
culture,
"plagiarism"
in the Christian
Middle
when
and
scribes,
writers,
Ages,
been
all
compilers
Westerners
that
was
originary
equal,
to oneself
honor
higher
and
ceremonies.
Indeed
knowledge
outside
occidental
would
thinking
threatened
concept.
that here
to me
clear
original
and
in
no
do
of originality
either
about
all,
intellectual
the
of
point
that once
and
to
produce
active
sense,
together
no real
of
and
property
thinking
we have
texts. And
yet we modern
historical
indicators,
despite
one.
is a crafted
We
have
we
are
truly
worked
out
of original
capable
a
critical
particular
ours
and must
be so
or several
it is identifiably
books,
by others.
acknowledged
I am writing
not of the more
here
ideational
property,
only of verbal
as
material
intellectual
defined
under
Western
law
of
property
questions
am I
and objects.
Nor
between
critical
patents
particularly
distinguishing
I can
and creative
the arguments.
ideation,
"Even,"
you
though
imagine
system,
an
of what
that one's
critical work
ismostly
say, "admitting
might
amalgam
one has read of others',
a short story it ismine.
Iwrite
I have made
if
surely
the
not
as it is
the characters,
and
the story would
have
existed
plot,
without
me.
acknowledgment
This point
or
idea
stories
for
raises
structures
and
not
it
Therefore
from
characters
avowedly
else might
creative"
"original
* Toenote:
as
from
critical
from
"created"
Where
is mine,
its particulars."*
two difficulties.
First,
such
writing
I deserve
and
me,
if critical
writers
"creative"
writers
their ideas
glean
to craft
learn
reading,
to stories
and characters,
exposure
than
"real" or, better
(rather
yet,
craftings
differ,
originate?
in terms
How
of
their
do
permanent
"original
participation
"historical").
critical"
of
and
in learned
to this manifesto,
let me
and disavow,
note,
appendage
so much
these latter quotation
marks. They don't
acknowledge
no one has written
them but me, and yet they serve to
they embrace:
Such levels of ownership
words
from my words.
in the very act what
inscribe
use, bracket
out, fold in, the words of "others" within
imagine,
acknowledge,
are "one's own."
appearance
the words
or
whether
the
neutral
as disown
distance
it means
my
to
words
that
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360
NEW
LITERARY
HISTORY
as Artist"
on
for more
"The Critic
(see Oscar Wilde's
pondering
same
to
The
the
"creation"
of
whose
score)?
poetry,
questions
apply
cerements
to it,
even more
historical
than do
cling
traditionally,
closely
to the fresh
old stories
sheets
of plotted
fictions.
concerns
now
The
second
the
of language.
We
difficulty
trademarking
between
which
is bad
for
and
distinguish
copyright,
enough
language,
structures
that
is worse.
which
trademark,
and
say,
a trademark
Property,"
and get
If I write
a
have
bumper
out on
taken
the words
made
it, then
you
to use
time you want
pay me
every
such a catastrophic
scenario
prevent
our
want
verbal
borders
clear: we don't
perhaps
order.
To
of our
material
even
and
conditions
are
detectives
legal
on the
that
will
have
those
Intellectual
three
words,
to ask me
and
three
we must
make
to be
words
currently
improper
lord! Music
in that
words
the fluidity
bound
by the
bind,
say, music.
use of melodies,
for
lookout
"Relinquish
with
those
sticker
(Scores
or
pieces
concrete
of
of
as
from
the past. My sweet
has become
songs,
legally
as
as the
so clear.)
fuss
made
engine
design,
Napster
we must
not wish
to be
out
for
for word
Surely
people
looking
our own. To
we should
combinations
that resemble
this
think of
prevent
we should
we all touch,
verbal
ideas as words
celebrate
the controversial
of Kathy
"plagiarisms"
rewrite
of
Demonology).
event: we
portions
Our whole
Acker
(for
of Wuthering
commonly
system
trace our
in her moving
psychoanalytic
own
book
My Mother:
example
in her
Heights
of acknowledgment
sources
back only
is hugely
flawed
a few years,
saving
we
don't
bother
in any
older
to ac
work;
"primary"
our own
a kind of
at all,
it's
become
by
knowledge
figuring
in our minds
for a while
intellectual
of sitting
by virtue
squatters'
rights,
to become
in my
We
should
work
more,
(like Foucault's
colleague's).
to
of verbal
rather
than less, flexible
about
how we treat modes
expression,
for
acknowledgment
some
view
a circulation
as
them
processual,
made
wholly
discourse
age of
Need
so-called
material
the
Internet
it be
said
we
that
up by
can believe
this
in our
of writing
and
learning
our
such
critique
a constant
heads,
in the
Surely
interchange.
of ideas
is possible.
is completely
unoriginal?
a flow
of originality
2 For some indication of the fear and respect inspired by the muscular
I transcribe an anonymous
notion of intellectual
property,
interchange
between
a worried
subscriber
and
an
alert
moderator
(or
other
sub
scriber?the
identity is no clearer than the questioner's)
respondent's
on a formerly
itself remain
active
listserv
(which will
anonymous)
to graduate
is executed
issues. That
the exchange
student
devoted
under
and
matter
the sign of anonymity
illuminates
whose
do you
Q. How
are
networking
one
words
handle
to find
beauty
these
both
of
people
undermining
all:
after
are,
the risk
underscores
the danger
its very
of the topic
concerns.
of having
ideas
stolen
from you
your
are
similar
who
work,
doing
might
who
It does
when
not
you
be willing
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INTELLECTUAL
RELINQUISH
361
PROPERTY
to co-author
want
etc., or who might
instruments,
survey
your papers,
extent
To
what
do
reveal
how
do
with
you
your work,
you protect
you?
to occur
in academia!),
and with
unethical
behavior
(it seems
against
Is it simply
and
intuition?
do you open
good
judgment
up?
to review
papers
yourself
whom
A.
In response
from
theft,
claim
to
there
concern
to your
news
is good
about
and
ideas and protecting
them
your
claiming
news. The
news
is that you can lay
good
them
before
else
does.
anyone
widely
bad
ideas
your
now make
by publishing
for anyone,
this possible
who
students,
including
graduate
to get
their
have
the clout
contributions
published
quickly
through
more
avenues.
to a
The
various
formal
open
publishing
graduate
approaches
are:
student
Computers
not
may
a. Give
a
whatever
at your
department's
to
forum
is open
grad
presentation
other
campus
"brown
lunch
bag"
students
or
seminars
their
discussing
on-going
work.
a
b. Present
session,
others
and
c. Publish
them
addresses
Many
people
and at the
were
the
Internet
it), or
(ultimately
a relevant
given
where
students
could
accepted
with many
a
poster
interested
for
on your own World
Web
Wide
we
e-mail
discussion
list. When
swing
through
several
students
who
had papers
listserv],
to us for our
review. We
then
announced
[this
electronic
on
idea
your
can
if you
Page
began
sent
at a conference
to get a paper
ASAP
paper
(try
at
this will
let you discuss
idea
your
length
name
associated
with
idea).
your
get your
since
hold
to
related
[on
of free
a thesis
doing
this
listserv]
of
the
the papers.
their
idea,
get
copies
their name
associated
with
very successfully
gotten
on their
same
comments
time
from
readers
who
papers
requested
as the
was
to copy and distribute
it as
left
permission
copyright
long
have
intact.
a
d. Put
hand
e.
mark
copyright
out
at a
anything
on
a marketable
If you have
is that, while
you can
copyright
exposed,
concept
need
you
someone
associated
person
protection
work
from
the very
first
time
you
publish
it (or
the copyright
The
bad
register
immediately.
a
a
can't
idea, you
paper
copyright
containing
good
are
once
a
the good
idea
itself.
Ideas
and
is
idea
"public"
good
all bright
brains will seize on it and use it as they will.
that is the
Indeed,
of "collaboration"
in scientific
research
in the field.
news
What
your
presentation).
more
with
uses
to do
famous
idea,
is to get
with
and
idea. Otherwise,
your
idea
your
is to publish
to
the
become
name
associated
your
a better
distribution
you'll
even
idea widely?to
with
idea before
your
name
system
gets his/her
credit"
when
the
famous
get "passing
more
rich
and
famous.
Your
only
saturate
the field
with
your
idea. You
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All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
362
can
NEW
do
this,
to your
other
among
work
published
on
places,
and how
relevant
others
Usenet
could
LITERARY
discussion
a copy
get
of
HISTORY
and
groups
it. Good
refer
luck!
if you really think it bad news that you
Good
luck indeed. Especially
cannot copyright
ideas. But this copyright ban begs the question: what is
an idea and its instantiation?
the difference
between
Isn't that an
we
content
Are
essentialist
of
and
form?
divorcing
getting somewhere?
I have
3
lost
source
the
for
this
are
there
However,
quotation.
many
like it. Such as two by Alan Davies:
others
"Truth is lies that have
hardened"
and "A grasped history is lost when
the concern
is to keep
a
track of it in precise way" (Signage [New York, 1987], pp. 11 and 17).
"if the 'weeping philosopher,'
Or what Walter Pater writes of Heraclitus:
finds the ground of his melancholy
in the
the first of the pessimists,
sense of universal change, still more must he weep at the dulness
[sic]*
strain of melody
it"
of men's ears to that continuous
and
(Plato
through
in
[New York, 1893], p. 12). Or Simone Weil: "we participate
ourselves"
the creation of the world by decreating
(Continuities 75-76).
Platonism
connection
The
among
a
family
Next
experience.
these
quotations
resemblance
is, foremost,
abides
own
my
these
among
reading
ex
brief
to give up the
the non-concluding,
mind, willing
processual
cannot
"Iwould like
like
So
?talo
ideas"
it
Calvino,
that,
"good
copyright.
to be able to write a book that is only an incipit, that maintains
for its
of the beginning,
the expectation
still
the potentiality
whole duration
cerpts:
not
on
focused
an
object"
(If
on
a winter's
a
night
as an
to escape
effort
The
further
more
I am
from
closure,
I am from finished,
an
which
the more
is also
to
potential
tr. William
traveler,
Weaver
[New York, 1981], p. 177). This ideal of potentiality
the
economy. It is also incited by the productive
by
productive
escape
space
is subverted
economy?
from
identity.
I inhabit,
the
anonym.
a little space cleared in the middle
I am not
of production.
afraid of losing my "ideas" to better minds. Better minds are all in the
the expression
is all in the bridges created to other thought,
expression,
to get up and
that makes you want to assume my position,
the writing
I only want
write
back.
* Toenote:
whose
"[sec]" is this? I think I know, but I would have to check the source, and
this was an error? An "error" now may not be in
the question
stays: who thought
error when
seen now may be in error
itself. What
the
does
it's seen
later, and one
to do with
The
of disowning
have
intellectual/historical
trumpsmanship?
typography
even
then
brackets
be
are
itself. They
the
insertion
are
the sign
of the
author
into
[current]
that we [I] know better.
the referenced
text, which
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cannot
363
PROPERTY
INTELLECTUAL
RELINQUISH
for
the rationale
Think
"quiddity," "haecceity." And now, begin:
as a
of this is quite apart from its signification
forms and inflections
demonstrative
pronoun. Though Old English inflected it as nominative,
4
dative,
accusative,
masculine,
singular,
and
genitive,
feminine,
in
instrumental,
and
neutral,
forms
determined
"That
plural,
by
come
it should
to this" (Hamlet 1.2) is how it seems.
The loss of inflections
the persistent
indexical function
foregrounds
in recent critical works and response
of this, the deixis courted
theory
("What this?" "Some serial; s'pposed to be good for you"). This courting
to belonging,
of how
it bears on sensitivity
is interesting
because
Essence
attachment,
(thisness),
(this here now),
ownership.
specificity
even
to
if
(mine here this) get attached
particularity
only by implication
or
we
each "clinamen"
"GUT" about which
read and/or write. The point
for
this
is that
purposes
essay's
"this"
is a word
we
can
feel
is new,
and
yet
to its neutrality
is due almost exclusively
("make it neu"), its
Deixis
is freeing because
it is linguistically unspecified
and
emptiness.
thus inhabitable;
it cannot
be intellectual
and so while
property,
an
it we are in an absolute
indicative, a specific uncertainty,
inhabiting
Stein so amply demonstrates).
(as Gertrude
present
unprepossessing
is part of a climate of certainty
that
Striving toward the indicative
laments any loss of the specific in the midst of continually
losing the
that feeling
the fullness of this first signifying definition
of "this"
specific. Consider
from the Oxford English Dictionary. "Indicating a thing or person present
or near (actually in space or time, or
as
ideally in thought, especially
to
been
mentioned
and
the
thus
mind)"
(s.v.
having just
being present
"this").
the
erat
Quod
whether
of
haecceity
or
actualized
we
Here
demonstrandum.
or not
(and the thought
circumstance,
movement
animate
of
real or
propinquitous,
a
have
this
thought,
or
indicates
that
with
a
to
pointer
of animation
or
quark
its best
body,
always
atom),
its
virtue
recency.
that
puts
as
"this"
Using
word's
the
essay's
indicative
second
or
we
before
word,
status
referential
in
know
peril,
its
or
referent,
at
the
very
the mind,
having not that "just been
to
out
to "This goodly frame, this
mentioned"
refer
to,
meaning
leaps
or his T that he takes to work, or the "shit" that
earth" or This magazine
"or the hist! of attention-getting."
But then
happens by rearrangement,
we also get from the OED a line from
followed
Tennyson
by an
least makes
it wait.
unattributed
"modern"
lady, this! Mod.
are
filed
mention,
with
in
to
our
give
This
So
usage
(by Mr. Ford?): "A gracious gift to give a
is what I like" (s.v. "this"). Once
such applications
memory
us
pause,
no consideration
that
"this"
archives,
one
we
should
of its history.
But
a
becomes
wonder
about
some beloved
fuller
using
word
too
students
to
freely,
"don't
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364
NEW
quiddity"; now when
this is what we like.
know much about
forceful
indicator,
5
this is a representation
thought was prior to language.
is now,
presentation
is later?a
the
subsidiary
actual
echo,
HISTORY
to an empty yet
down
of a thought I had a moment
can I tell you? The myth
Pretend
The
it's pared
LITERARY
ago.
is that
How
moment
a
of
or
being
a
and
thing,
re-presentation
to another
belonging
or
time
person.
to someone
This is representationism,
and it belongs
else (mostly
of Platonic duality and longing. Even
Kant) : it is a local reincarnation
now the representationists
So far as I can
fight with the phenomenists.
see,
loss.
contemporary
In
this
are
representationists
one
condition
believes
in a
immersed
an
that
entity
of
metaphysics
or
event
exists
of it and our
(in its own now), apart from our understanding
our
own
to
of
it
This
is
"later").
(in
ascription
significance
living in a split
world which will never let us have now. But Ned Block is getting smarter:
objectively
character
"phenomenal
outruns
he
content,"
representational
writes
in
a phenomenist.
"Mental Paint," becoming
(Block's essay is forthcoming
in a book of essays on Tyler B?rge, edited by Martin Hahn and Bjorn
Ramberg.)
The key to evading a metaphysics
its own object
act, as containing
sense
"object"
I
reality" he favors
and Other Essays,
take
Charles
in
to
which
experience,
a
a
in
invoke
the
another
presentation:
dynamic
at
always
can
be
event
and
two
least
solitary
being,
of the
(in something
significance
Olson
instance,
"stance
in his 1950 essay, "Projective Verse" in Human
ed. Donald Allen
[New York, 1967]). Then
becomes,
instead,
presentation
are
a
memory,
you
rewriting
are
cance.
there
And
because
than
of loss is to see each
in
toward
Universe
each re
instance,
a
dynamic
only
if
signifi
(rather
presentation
though
even
unre
when
I and event/
is always at least fourfold:
the presentation
ported),
and
and
you
event/significance.
significance
there is only presentation.
And
Thus
there is no representation;
it
still
doesn't
make
is
experienced?which
always multiply
presentation
our purposes might be that since there is
for
The
point
re-presentation.
no such thing as representation
of verbal ideas, there is no need to try to
delineate
Which
originary
is not
and
presentations
to obliterate
derivative
distinctions,
re-presentations.
but
only
the myth
of
their
univocality.
start with aban
the idea of words as property might
Relinquishing
each
combina
of
the idea
doning
originality. Arguably,
unprecedented
6
tion,
presentation,
screen?can
be
of words?whether
called
an
original
spoken
arrangement.
or
put
But
on
a blank
the
page
notion
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or
that
recombination
that
as
is,
notion),
I've
to demonstrate
the
medieval
dates
written
of mine
"natural." A colleague
of
notions
of
memory's
of my unoriginal
point about
in The Book
Carruthers
writes,
here?).
Medieval Culture: "[p]erhaps no advice
on the subject, and yet so foreign, when
of modern
[,] as this notion
scholarship
service
reads
in
someone
else's
. . .This
work.
not
I invoke Mary Carruthers,
interest
a
using
reconstructive
to
attachment
constructed,
culturally
already,
suggests
reflexive
(and our
originality
possessable
equals
365
PROPERTY
INTELLECTUAL
RELINQUISH
recent
text
that
in part
eluci
in
functions
the
(who's the authority
originality
A
Study ofMemory in
ofMemory:
is as common
in medieval writing
one thinks about it, to the habits
of 'making one's own' what one
a
for
allows
process
adaptation
text that a modern
the original
scholar would
(and
tampering
most
for
it
of our concerns
find
violates
intolerable,
does)
quite
and 'the integrity of the
'accuracy,' 'objective scholarship,'
concerning
a slow
most
But
isn't
of education
text'" ([Cambridge,
1990], p. 164).
own
out
of
ideational pyramid
learned stones?
your
process of making
current "Honor"
isn't quite the point of Louis Bloomfield's
Which
cases at the University
of Virginia. Evidently he has established
that it is
in this case) to share six-string word
for anyone
(students,
unlikely
with
sequences with anyone else without
rearing its constructed
plagiarism
head. Nevertheless,
he admits,
"'[y]ou can't judge just based on the
...
numbers.
themselves
By
don't
they
mean
("Bloomfield
anything'"
Cavalier Daily, November
30, 2001, A3).
Program Finds More Matches,"
a
out of a
for
in
and
who's
who's
Just
tagmemic procedure
discovering
in
of
which
breeds
And
meanwhile
system
"anonymity
feelings
security."
over in Jordan in 1999, Parliament
voted in an intellectual property
law
so
it can
too.
W.T.O.,
play
But back to the idealized polemic
in which
such fools of us all.
Another
of authority
lovely relinquishment
business
comes
some
in a
from
letter
who
Petrarch,
wrote,
might
someone
not make
pointed
time
me
between
to
1337
1341: "I insisted
with Giovanni
Golonna
di San
[in conversation
. . . that I had
new
to
own
of
say,
my
nothing
actually
nothing
that was others' property either; for all that we
invention, and nothing
and
Vito]
have
from
learned
whatever
source
becomes
our
own,
unless
failing
robs us of it" (Lettersfrom Petrarch, tr.Morris Bishop [Bloomington,
memory
1966], p. 66). Or as we might call it today, failing recall, given how much
we are assured that each of our experiences
has been inscribed on some
or
our
in
somewhere
and that it's only our
brains
bodies
protein
us
to
recollect
that
from
(adaptive?) inability
keeps
having complete and
access
constant
Though
(precursor
to
everything
we
have
once
known
or
experienced.
locate a potent
lust for the original
in the Romantics
to our lust for achievable
deixis today?), ancestors
of our
we
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366
NEW
of originality
notion
also appeared
in mid-to-late
vidualism
notions
to
craved
Europe.
and
create
say, again,
from
away
thought-properties.
deliberately
a
more
to the
and
attachment
towards
medieval
self,
original
as
in common
verbal
would
ourselves
cultures,
participants
for
Internet.
interface,
interchange,
interplay,
opportunities
versus
mous
versus
form
debate
about
content,
signifier
mostly
very
own
HISTORY
of affective
Western
seventeenth-century
haven't
always
turn
To
we
to
alongside
LITERARY
indi
Which
is
protect
a romantic
our
sense
of
new
create
enor
The
is
signified,
underwritten
by the fear that we never say anything new (anything, that
not
If verbal
substantiated
is,
by scientific discovery, broadly defined).
creation
is all
about
better
firmly credited with
I am trumpeting
embracing,
reduces
again,
it's
descriptions,
no
we
wonder
to be
want
ours.
to
of acquiescence
of human
repetition.
the
spirit
the beauties
its exhortative
to
compass
that
range
the unoriginal?
If my manifesto
it is
alone,
enough.
Idea, as I want to use it, goes back to Plato, with many permutations
as I think we do, a kind of eternal
since. If we take Plato to mean,
are reflective
then
derivations
whose
(imperfect)
copies,
archetype
This affliction persists
"idea" is eternally afflicted with the metaphysical.
"idea" as "whatsoever is the Object
through the additions of the Lockean
7
of
Understanding
"The
Stevens's
a Man
when
Idea
of
Hume's
thinks,"
at
Order
Key
and
sensation,
Is
West."
"idea"
separate from our intentions, a particle lodged permanently
out temporarily?given
forever and brought
(introduced
limited
recall
mechanisms?for
review),
that
something
Wallace
an
then
object
in the brain
the brain's
recombines
combing? The myriad histories of "idea"
thought and feeling, a woman
seem to force its definition
into an ineluctable metaphysical
realm.
is the realm assigned to it by copyright law. As we are reminded
Which
to intellectual property matters,
in a website devoted
law does
copyright
not protect
is thus revealed as Platonic, even religiously
ideas. Copyright
so: it deals not with Plato's superior Forms but instead with inferior,
the fact that they must
reflective forms. Ideas are unprotected
despite
be
always
presented
artworks,
programs,
in
concrete
the
movies,
film,
prose,
forms?poetry,
and
blueprints,
so
computer
on?which
(the
are
acknowledges)
by copyright. Huh. The Copyright
protected
in
believes
then,
reality, a place of Idea that cannot be
metaphysical
website
Act,
regulated.
Think
individuals
to have
again of our worried
need to be registered
a ?
imprinted
on
us,
in note 2. Perhaps
listserv exchange
as embodied
ideas. Perhaps we all need
so
that
we
may
walk
around
as
simulta
and self-indicative,
invio
(unsourceable)
perfectly
neously anonymous
of form (body) and content
late and specific combinations
(idea). So
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we
that
result
in
network
may
of copyrighting
because
anonymous
367
PROPERTY
INTELLECTUAL
RELINQUISH
in any
Such,
safety.
verbal
event,
inassimilable.
unusable,
me
around
Everyone
thought.
is
What
one
be
might
the
logical
becomes
connection
the you yourself and the property
you create? All
(product)
are
their
and
(and
anonymous,
only products
"tangible"
products
can be copyrighted. What
is ongoing
is not produced,
has
blueprints)
not yet hardened
into labeled "property."
Is the human being a fact or an idea? (Neither can be copyrighted.)
between
facts and ideas?" "Ideas are facts in
"What is the difference
between
is the
"What
congress."
difference
a
among
an
person,
a fact?"
and
idea,
"Nothing."*
is something
Which
Connection
like what Jim Rosenberg
Direct."
For
transaction
"energy
"an
exchange:
Rosenberg,
of art?art's
layer"
art which
focuses
in "Openings:
writes
"non-possessiveness"
ideas are a matter
on
the
of
the
unregulated
itself
layer
transaction
energy
The
attends
as
to maximize
the primary layer should seek
the energy transactions
that
can take place. This means
the artist should not stand in the way of her/
own
his
transactions
energy
nicated"
8
an
there's
an
For
should
take
artist
is not
who
is no
there
place,
10 [1998],
(Poetics Journal,
Now
way
transactions.
energy
about
specific
'thing'
237).
idea.
The word "is" is a signifier for ontological
inhabitability
"this" signifies deictic positioning,
the empty specific.
words,
approachable
demonstrate
which
words
that
the
the exceptions
bankrupt,
should have the freedoms
let me
But
what
commu
to be
argue
the
point,
anyone
notion
may
of
claim
verbal
which
prove
of "this is."
since
what
"is" may
seem
and
so
all
sort of the
are
These
you
is
property
should
to
words
claim,
intellectual
rule. All
more
words
solid
than
a deictic.
Is is immediately problematic
in at least two ways: to assert that
a
"is"
sufficient
of the nature of reality and
something
posits
knowledge
a confidence
about
the possible
relations
of reality and language.
such a concept as the present,
"this" time, in which
Further, it presumes
to
a
postulate
present
tense.
And,
as
a
learned
friend
reminds
me,
it is
two uses for "is": as copula, by which a
distinguish
to its subject ("the book is red") and as indicating
the first use is not indicative of the
("God is"). Necessarily,
to [il faut]
is attached
necessary
predicate
real existence
second.
To add to the confusions,
*Toenote:
come
do
from
the quotation
marks
a source? Yes, but not
ifwe agree with Harry Mathews
around
these questions
and answers
that "writing
indicate
that they
so disavowed.
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368
NEW
works
(Immeasurable Distances
is possible between
the
of that is in the reading
exclusively by what the writer leaves out"
[Venice, Ca., 1991], p. 20), then no relationship
assertion of what is in writing and what we make
If we agree with Heidegger
that
experience.
understanding
of Being is a fact," then no matter
is, we
written
[New York,
as
about
they take us to mean
1977], p. 46).
about what
Or,
as unclear
be
will
Locke
and
we
and
Goethe
HISTORY
"this average and vague
how writers set up the
as
mean
(Basic Writings,
and
Vico
what
LITERARY
readers
ed. David
Emerson
be
will
Farrell Krell
we
intimate,
can
understand
of the
only what we already know. So our understanding
term is can never be sharply focused:
if it begins determinately,
it re
resolves indeterminately
after an investigation.
If we yearn for Lockean
we
candor
strive
in mind
to fix the ontology
of is. If we have other cultural
we may relinquish Lockean
candor
(as arising out of
apparatus
the Anglo-Saxon
linear style of argumentation)
or biblical approach?returning
to the same
the French/Continental
spectives?or
or
whatever
most
and prefer the Persian
topics from altered per
of pursuing
tangents,
approach
or
certainty-seeking
for settling meaning,
useful
certainty-avoiding
however
we
approach
find
for determining
temporarily,
is.
what
in trying
So
determinate
(s.v.
"is"),
is we
to define
in
definition
bearing
in mind
the
perhaps
OED
that
we
("sing.
are
begin
pr?s,
still with
and
end
indie,
words
of
up with
vb.
much
Be.
the
q.v.")
where
was with G?del
after his 1931 paper, realizing
that the
we
of
of
deduce
the
deduction
which
(within
systems
logical consistency
as a signifier
use of "i" and "s" together
of present
is
existence)
recourse
so
to
to
that
its
establish
without
reasoning
complex
impossible
mathematics
own
internal
consistency
we
is suspect.
are vexed
to begin: perhaps with
by the issue of where
to
the
direful
Greece
wrath,
spring / Of woes
or
with
St. John's "In
unnumber'd,
heavenly goddess,
sing!" (tr. Pope),
was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word
the beginning
was God" (John 1.1 AV). Is the word traceable to multiple muses or to
is (was) the Bible? Who
autho
intellectual
property
only One? Whose
to write "God said"?
of the Book of Genesis
rized the transcriber(s)
by the compilers
presumed
pre-settled
Why is the issue of authorship
9
Here
Homer's
"Achilles'
of the climate:
classical philosophers
because
as one type of sign, while Augustine
and later
as
to
medieval
thinkers tended
view signification
primarily verbal (the
in both cases is on tendency). If words are only one layer in a
emphasis
in focus, thus not
is not so much
of signs, their ownership
compilation
of
the Bible? Perhaps
to treat words
tended
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so much
in doubt.
369
PROPERTY
INTELLECTUAL
RELINQUISH
In brief,
we've
a
from
swept
use
religious
of
language
the
that transmitted knowledge
semiotically?while,
ironically, positing
as
so
the
inexact
and
used
of God
very signs they
rendering
knowledge
a notion of the word as organizing
as inexact?to
all
possible knowledge
a
in
indicative
between
the
fifth
but
still
way. When,
fairly lonely,
by itself,
tool for investi
and the fifteenth centuries,
language was the dominant
the
gating
the
universe,
larger
arts
discursive
what could be known determinately
Contra Gentiles of Saint Thomas Aquinas).
in the sixteenth
and seventeenth
Then,
more
nervous
about
to
intensively
construct
one
guage?almost,
"the maker
what
of
words
could
universal
since
do.
not
just
an
at
get
more
ideal
lan
Cratylus to find
can
anyone
even
got
worked
to Plato's
back
The Summa
people
They
to
grammars,
course
of
and
deter
sermonicales)
centuries,
be
could argue, harking
names,"
(artes
(see for example
mined
be
to
allowed
make
them (Plato Cratylus 389). Now we've gone further
still (and
as
back
Sextus
well,
looped
serially
through
through
Empiricus?),
that a word can contain or indicate, to an
scepticism about the possibility
that it permits
itself or is a way to describe
acceptance
knowledge
other
alongside
for
ways?from,
in
guage
example,
Ludwig
Tractatus
the
Marcia
still
by
fourteenth
through
and
words
between
the other. We
word?effected
L. Colish's
ideas,
on
one
hand,
and
live with
the split?among
of formal
the development
centuries.
(For
assurance
in
the
is itself the vehicle of thought."
figured out how to get over the
disguises
thought"
Philosophical Investigations that "language
But of course that means we've still not
chasms
"Lan
Wittgenstein's
to his
more
ideas
and
facts,
on
and
reality, thought,
in
the
twelfth
logic
see
background,
for
example
of Language, A Study in theMedieval Theory of
[New Haven,
1968] or R. Howard
Bloch, Etymologies and
A Literary Anthropology of the French Middle Ages [Chicago,
Knowledge
Genealogies.
1983].)
And
these
between
the
brief
spoken
The Mirror
ponderings
word
and
do
the
not
written
even
word.
broach
Claude
the difference
's
L?vi-Strauss
is associated with innocence
and writing with
seems
a
more
than
(familiar) craving
hierarchy
nothing
for the Socratic scene, for the possibility of sincerity when words are an
immediate product of embodied
voice. Spoken as well as written words
have
Ponzio's
always
Augusto
sign residue"
"uninterpreted
(Signs, Dia
over
and
all
1993], p. 4)
them, though. The
logue,
Ideology [Amsterdam,
contention
word
that speech
and dissolution
"word"
looks
out
from
hoary
eyebrows,
especially
when
sur
rounded by quotation marks. As Charles Bernstein
has it, quoting Karl
Kraus: "The closer we look at a word the greater the distance from which
it stares back" (My Way [Chicago, 2001], p. 2).
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370
NEW
But
in
the
worrisome
realm
of
Intellectual
"networking"
Property,
earlier
listserv?is
our
of
the
speaking
has
assumed
discursive
of pie and that gave me
I ate a piece
10
in my
mouth,
an
in
stomach,
the
age
pie,
which
an idea. Did
or
to be
(as
the
that
knows
such a stance
ismaterial
and contextual,
on bad days.
everything
at best, obstructionist
in my
In
"form."
any
scene?the
(and paradoxically)
can be copyrighted
organic,
pulsing,
simultaneously
amorphous,
disembodied
petri dish of idea, where
nothing
nothing
HISTORY
presumed
but
because
LITERARY
is quaint
the idea originate
rationalism
us
teaches
to
center of the sorting mind? Does the
think) in the vast Oz processing
to
the brain? Is the body the "place of excrement"
for the
body belong
we forget our ideas
superior mind? What does the body know? When
have we lost our rights to them? Do we become
anonymous
only when
we lose our minds?
If we can undo the notion of property within ourselves
that
(a notion
us imagine things like "my will owns my actions" and "my mind
is
the
that
de
of
below
will
throat"),
everything
perhaps
superior
in intercourse
"I own
with others.
stabilize
the notion
of property
makes
the
myself?well,
only
conscious
state
if the
only
if someone
does not come
chemical
we
process
"I own
"I own
love.
my
my
hands"?if
attached. And if they do not, for all that they are expendable
lead to losing one's
loss of one's hands does not necessarily
some
"knowing"
truncated.
When
no
other
The
if we
we
knowledge
is not
"mind"
lose
touch
can
the
our
hands.
with
our
provide.
brain
Our
comprehension
we
"know"
fingerends,
alone.
heart"?well,
it away from me,
and sweep
along
call
let me.
to
agrees
Someone?Randall
in the
they
stay
(that is, the
life), we lose
is curtailed,
in a way
McLeod,
that
I
to emphasize
its process
thinking by the name "thingking,"
as
the
mind's
when
well
of
focused
(and
sovereignty
objects
perhaps
ing
on "the thing"). Arguably,
there
is no such thing as abstraction.
is physical.
bother us only when we
Such concretions
Consciousness
we rank it below
the
the
when
have a prejudice
against
physical,
as
we
If
know
the
all
the
absolute.
the
abstract,
physical
spiritual,
as
a
we
and
and
imagine
physical process,
imagination
encompassing,
we see that we are all subject to this process,
then we may be more
loving
That's what we are, bodies of
towards the shared body of knowledge.
think?calls
knowledge.
The
person
speaking
to you
is
immensely
more
communica
is one central paradox of
that difference
tive than the person writing:
cover
doesn't
the realm of spoken
the fact that Intellectual
Property
or idea. Copyright
law diminishes
the physical human
discourse
(whose
the
is unprotected
yet free, not an "act" at all) and enlarges
speech
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371
PROPERTY
INTELLECTUAL
RELINQUISH
are protected).
intellectual
Ideational
inhuman
(products
physical
a
mind.
of the embodied
is disdaining
property
When
you catch or claim what you hear and think, keep it a moment
"mind is primarily a
"Art as Experience":
then let it go. See Dewey's
as
verb" (Art
Experience [New York, 1958]).
11
it would
Perhaps
rather
a
than
help
to think of "ours" as a parallel
enclosure.
possessive
is an
is mine
What
descriptor
to
accompaniment
it is not
interiorized.
my existence,
"My" idea, though, feels interiorized.
a book I own, an idea I have, and
the difference,
What's
then, between
the love I feel for someone who agrees to be loved, who ismy love? The
to me. The ideas I
book I own is property unto death, always exterior
have, including those given me by the book, pass through and reconfigure
the circuitry of my brain. If they were mine as the book is, I could always
of the brain do
open them up and look at them. But the mechanisms
not recall so effectively:
resist
(if function can
property, preferring
they
to be reconfigured,
to have ideation pass through
be called preference)
is similar. It is "mine" by virtue of the
them. The love I have for someone
it reconfigures
existence
of another,
it is active
my body's knowledge,
in
be
only
being relinquished.
Knowing
something might
thought of as
loving something.
So different ways of communicating
I write
of loving (knowing). How
a
define
character
for
a
make
audience?and
conjure and shape different ways
to you: "Whenever you speak, you
and
yourself
at
community
at
for
least
between
least
one
the
two
other?your
of you;
and
to you by others
you do this in a language that is of necessity provided
and modified
in your use of it" (James Boyd White, When Words Lose
Their Meaning
[Chicago, 1983], p. xi).
to
devoted
Or, in the very different words of a university website
as
define
author
and
"INTELLECTUALPROPERTY,"
you
your
yourself
as
audience
receptor.
Do
you
want
to do
this
in a
How
way?
possessive
do
we distinguish
of the author"
between our theoretical
about "the death
sophistication
and the sort of accepted definition
of an author provided
"An author is someone who contributes
by [this website]:
copyrightable
to
expression
the work."
Is a conversation
a work?
Should
we
(UCC) would
not
sure
to
declare
a
be
note
this in conversing?
The Universal
Copyright
conversation
one's
own,
since
Convention
as
our
website
again
tells
us,
"Copyright
is original authorship,
fixed in a tangible medium
of
expression
In
this
conversation
is
definition,
expression."
tautological
presumably
not included,
since it is not (again, presumably)
tangible, since its ideas
are not yet property. Which means,
in terms of intellectual property, that
able
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372
NEW
when
we're
to each
talking
we
other
not
do
own
our
LITERARY
words,
HISTORY
are
they
not
"ours."
Let's
carry this further, in to the terrain of intellectual
imperialism.
Idea-mongers might hike out to very foreign parts, those not covered by
the UCC, and have some very
conversations
with foreign
stimulating
then use those ideas with absolute
in
their
"works." Of
persons,
impunity
course
(you
we
respond),
so. To which
academic
citizens, we
ness about ideas, the
not
do
academic
honorable
say of course:
should acknowledge
property
citizens
and
would
we
are honorable
the problem
of possessive
fact that the
the
originality,
that ideational
intellectual
as cultural studies reminds
because
legible farce of distinct
of knowledge
and training mean
all
(and, again,
things are material,
dialectics
us)
are
I'd
is untenable.*
with a rich history. It is crucial to conversations
12 Of\s a preposition
as
of knowing
the marker of the genitive
in English. According
(loving),
to the OED, the primary sense was
a sense
now
obsolete,
away from,
except
uses
OFF.
All
the
of o/are
spelling
existing
no
trace
retain
of
the
and
sense,
original
themselves
the
of the vaguest
and
expression
away,
in so far
as
it is retained
so
derivative;
many
so weakened
down
in
remote
as
as
to be
the
to
in
most
of relations.
The
intangible
reason
of the introduction
of senses
complicated
by
the mingling
of these with
the main
sources,
stream,
a
which
often
to
renders
it
difficult
down,
weakening
assign
use
or sources,
to its actual
sources
(s.v. "of)
is exceedingly
sense-history
or uses derived
from other
and
the
particular
subsequent
modern
to all possible uses. "Point
Exactly. A "use of of relates one instantiation
of view" relates one point
to the view it might
hold.
potentially
Intellectual property
is "property of the intellect," relating one property
to the intellect
to which
it works in reference.
(owned characteristic)
a
"Of is belonging
relay, a grammaticalizer
taking us back to "this" and
is of now": quiddity,
ontology,
morphology,
temporality.
one
Inhabitable
absolutes.
from their web of words,
is
Inseparable
in
the
of
the
in
Deleuze
and
caught
circularity
dictionary
(wrapped
Guattari's
de territorialized
nomadism
and flow, in A Thousand Plateaus
1987] and Kafka: Toward a Theory of Minor Literature
[Minneapolis,
1986]).
[Minneapolis,
"is." "This
* Toenote:
see Richard
Stallman's
Free
Software
the Electronic
Frontier
Foundation,
Perry Barlow,
article
("Who Will Own Your Next Good
Idea?")
and at http://www.theatlantic.com),
from which
Foundation,
the Grateful
Sendmail,
John
Apache,
and Charles Mann's
Dead,
in The Atlantic Monthly
I derive
this toenote's
(September
list.
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1998,
373
PROPERTY
INTELLECTUAL
RELINQUISH
to
Which
singularity of instances,
brings us, by way of the necessary
one
use
of "of." In using the word of, I think
the subjectivity of
intellect's
uses
of past
as
such
"Of man's
first
of God,"
"Mother
disobedience,"
"the
of
States of America,
way of all flesh," United
point of view, Bachelor
Arts, and as a chipper reminder, the first line o? Aurora Leigh: "Of writing
state of mind). This
many books there is no end" (Poe in an ecclesiastic
an
a linking word, or
that
"of
is
list
indicates
term,
partial
ordering
more
a
that
clarifies
the
it without
word
words
around
generally
to itself, without
attention
attracting
wrote
in
or
"Shakespeare;
almost
full of meaning.
being
Poet":
"Great
in not
say, consists
receptive; in letting
to pass unobstructed
[Boston,
the
As Emerson
one
power,
genial
would
at all;
in being altogether
being original
the world do all, and suffering the spirit of the hour
(Emerson s Complete Works, vol. 4
through the mind"
is
of power I am enamored
the
idea
of.
Which
183).
p.
1883],
cannot
is an impossible
ideal which
be true to
"Knowledge"
in
of
basic
formulations
except
experience
physical proof, the uncopy
even
"mere
it's
and
then
facts";
temporary. When Mark Taylor
rightable
is
the
of subject and
writes, "[a]bsolute
knowledge
perfect copulation
13
self
object,
and
which
other,
in certain
issues
he
conception,"
on
goes
to
us that a union between
is impossible:
subjectivity and objectivity
a
in
deferral
the
that
self-consciousness
opens
space
"[t]emporal
subject
can never close. This invisible space blinds the speculative philosopher"
is specula
(TEARS [Albany, N.Y., 1990], pp. 18, 21). If verbal ideation
or
cannot
it
have
the
closure
of
science
hard
determined
tive,
pleasure
a more fluid sense of
to embrace
If it wants
it
religion.
knowledge,
an
in
towards
and
stasis,
urge
property, originality,
might,
relinquishing
remind
embrace
Vera
a state
of unfocused
the
deep
hension.
aside,
good
reclaiming
as the amount
Ignorance":
that
formulations
us to link the
permits
confusing
us which
are
inside
strategies
world
for
in art
and give
them
form
requires
setting
as necessary.
It follows
from
this that a work
of knowledge
and
in balance.
it holds
ignorance
these
it later
a work
knowledge
it teaches
sounds
"Benign
awareness
metaphoric
To reach
conflicting
the better
Which
Frankel's
us
to see.
a bit
can
hold
in a
suspended
(ArtsCanada
like something
[1977],
written
transforming
with
its appre
knowledge
of art is as
more
The
ignorance,
27)
over
five hundred
years
earlier:
truth,
which
while
can
necessity,
which
is ontological
be
more
neither
. . . our
intellect
truth,
is
nor
less
than
Therefore,
it
possibility.
is unattainable
in its entirety;
is,
is
the
and
the most
absolute
quiddity
of
though
it has
things,
been
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374
the
NEW
of
objective
more
profoundly
itself.
all philosophers,
we
learn
this
Cusanus,
(Nicolas
none
by
lesson
Of Learned
of
has
it been
Ignorance,
as
found
the
ignorance,
LITERARY
closer
we
HISTORY
it really
draw
is. The
to truth
1440)
which brings us
In other words, knowing must involve relinquishing,
as
are both
to
I
its
know
I.
and
conduits
back
love.
nothing
Knowledge
use
of
its
the
material
In
use), avoiding
(and critiques
language
flowing.
of
seductions
into the world
folding
* Toenote:
unless
of course
"the
lone
for
religion,
of, broadly
we
to speak broadly
Which
philosophers.
philosophical
can
become
speaking,
it's hard
we are Continental
Anglo-Americans
unswept world,
in mind.
modes
which
and
science
of
verbal
art,
knowledge.*
of knowledge.
We
tend to speak specifically,
of pragmatic
the reverence
partly explains
theorists:
they keep on living in that
another's
ideas, writing with few objects but many
Continental
one
borrowing
as temporary
dialectic
knowledge
Seeing
and level sands stretch far away."
recklessly
matrices
rather
than
as objects
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around