Re: Toyota Celica

Matt Kirschenbaum (mgk3k@faraday.clas.Virginia.EDU)
Thu, 20 Feb 1997 08:06:52 -0500 (EST)

> I'm not sure if anyone wants to hear more about it, but I was thinking about
> what Matt Kirschenbaum said about the poeticism of a phrase such as Toyota
> Celica, the way it can be felt, and am a big believer in the construction of
> new poetries from this type of language, the way that these brand names,
> like commodities provide pleasure in that they can be recast and used in
> unintended ways. But still, at some fundamental level, someone owns this
> langauge, and it is considered as such from the very beginning. Structures
> are in place to make sure we know this. So you don't use Toyota Celica or
> you get your ass sued, you don't get to call a novel Panasonic.
>
> James Mulholland

James and Catherine make good points. Language _can_ be
commodified as intellectual property. One possible response to
such a situation is to go ahead and call your novel Panasonic
anyway and force "them" to sue your ass. Then turn the event of
the trial into a public spectacle designed to raise people's
consciousness about such matters. See Craig Baldwin's film
_Sonic Outlaws_ (available at Clemons) for an account of media
pranksters, culture jammers, and high-tech plagiarists who do
exactly that (the film takes off from the Island Records
lawsuit against the underground band Negativland for their
having released a recording entitled "U2").

--Matt

=================================================================
Matthew G. Kirschenbaum University of Virginia
mgk3k@virginia.edu Department of English
http://faraday.clas.virginia.edu/~mgk3k/ Electronic Text Center