UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA Los Angeles Remixing Authorship Copyright and Capital in Hollywood’s New Media Age A dissertation submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree Doctor of Philosophy in Anthropology by Hadi Nicholas Deeb 2014 © Copyright by Hadi Nicholas Deeb 2014 ABSTRACT OF THE DISSERTATION Remixing Authorship Copyright and Capital in Hollywood’s New Media Age by Hadi Nicholas Deeb Doctor of Philosophy in Anthropology University of California, Los Angeles, 2014 Professor Elinor Ochs, Chair The explosion in new media technologies and how people use them has ruptured a longstanding model of authorship and ownership behind intellectual property (IP) laws and norms. New media make creating, manipulating, and circulating information much faster, easier, and cheaper. The romantic author entitled to own her expressions of creative genius is being reimagined as a remix author who always borrows, collaborates, and has partial claims over cultural products. Scholars in various fields have used this development to reconsider what authorship is and how it relates to ownership.
My approach employs empirically, locally grounded linguistic anthropological methods that have not been applied before to this topic. My aim is to uncover what motivates authorship as a communicative activity that has social value, as evidenced by its link to ownership. I conducted fieldwork among professional storytellers, lawyers, and marketers in Hollywood, an influential industry that relies heavily on copyright, the branch of IP ii law that regulates the circulation of creative expression. I investigated how people who see remix authorship as both a challenge and an opportunity talk about authorship and, in doing so, talk as authorship.
Framing my study in practice theory terms, I analyzed the micro-semiotic and macro-social aspects of that discourse in contexts such as courtroom litigation, professional gatherings, and story production. I argue that authorship and ownership are mutually defining practices driven by a productive tension between the chronological pursuit of authentic experience and a horizonal goal of idealized authenticity. Striving to achieve authenticity is socially mediated, and often occurs through cultural products, including entertainment commodities. For a long time, romantic authorship ideology tailored authenticity to its own terms, mitigating the tension and supporting the modern IP regime.
Spurred by new media, remix authorship ideology pries open that loop. More broadly, people constantly remix the nexus of what authenticity, authorship, and ownership mean. My findings further remix authorship theory in order to think beyond the superficial divergence of IP law and social practices; specify the social and institutional consequences of linguistic authorship, including how it can lead to paradigmatic transformation; and describe an experiential motivation behind that practice. iii The dissertation of Hadi Nicholas Deeb is approved.
Alessandro Duranti John Heritage Paul V. Riley Elinor Ochs, Committee Chair University of California, Los Angeles 2014 iv TABLE OF CONTENTS Chapter 1: Remixing Authorship 1 I. Outline of the Remaining Chapters 14 Chapter 2: A History of Authorship 17 I. The Rise of Romantic Authorship and the Modern Regime 20 II.
Paradigm Lost 30 Chapter 3: Literature Review 44 I. Legal Scholarship on Copyright and New Media 44 II. Sociocultural Anthropology and Media Studies 52 III. The Author as a Role in Linguistic Anthropology 59 IV.
Authenticity Tied to Authorship 67 Chapter 4: Methods 79 I. Data Collection 79 II. Practice 96 Chapter 5: Authorship as Practice 98 I. Authorship as Practice 98 II.
Language Use as Practice 112 v Chapter 6: Retheorizing Authorship 143 I. A Model of Authorship as a General Habitus 143 of Communicative Activity II. A Model of Romantic Authorship as a Dominant, Particular Habitus 153 of Authorship III. A Model of Remix Authorship as an Emergent, Particular Habitus 158 of Authorship Chapter 7: Authenticity 164 I.
Authenticity as an Intersubjective Pursuit and Goal 164 A. Pursuit and Goal 165 B. The Temporal Tension within Authenticity 178 III. The Tension Channeled through Works of Art 184 Chapter 8: The Production of Authorship 191 I.
Hollywood Storytelling as a Field of Cultural Production 192 A. New Media’s Impact on the Field 202 C. The Barbarians at the Gates 208 II. Authenticity as the Driver of Struggle and Change in Hollywood 220 A.
The Double Edges of the Quest for Authenticity 223 B. The Remix Effort to Realign Authenticity and Reconfigure the Field 234 Chapter 9: CopyCatfish 240 I. The Film 241 vi A. Realness Controversy—Blurring Genre 247 II.
The Copyright Infringement Lawsuit 260 A. Infringement and Original Expression 261 B. The Legal Dispute 263 C. Courtroom Talk 270 III.
Conversational Data and Analysis 275 IV. Conclusion 309 Chapter 10: Intimate Intrafaces 314 I. Transmedia: Terminology as Capital 314 A. Revolution or Rediscovery? 321 C.
Anxiety about Authenticity 325 II. Performance as Practice 330 A. Characteristics of Performance 330 B. Intimate Intrafaces 336 III.
Three Performances of the Double Edge of Authenticity 339 A. The Edge of the Campfire 340 1. Introducing the Potential Trouble 341 2. Resolving—or Dissolving—the Trouble 348 3.
Articulating the Real Challenge—the Double Edge of Authenticity 354 B. The Edge in Business 358 vii 1. Taking Stances toward Authenticity 360 2. The Ambiguity of Shiny Objects 362 3.
Aligning Remix Authenticity in Shiny Objects 366 4. Authentic Shiny Objects Can Be Romantic or Remix 370 5. Authentic Striving as the Storytellers’ Purview 373 —Making Shiny Objects 6. Judging Authenticity as the Audience’s Purview 377 —Preferring Shiny Objects C.
The Edge of the Law 380 1. A Problem of Property 384 2. Seeking Compatibility between Property and Remix 387 3. Forecasting Resolution and Reunion 390 IV.
Conclusion 393 Chapter 11: “The Miracle Mile Paradox” 395 I. ARG Storytelling as a New Kind of Narrative Chronotope 396 II. “The Miracle Mile Paradox” 407 A. MMP Production and Play 408 B.
Hacking as the Intertextual Pursuit of Authenticity 436 1. Licit and Illicit Connotations of Hacking 436 2. Hacking in MMP 440 III. Conclusion 447 Chapter 12: From Talk about Authorship to Talk as Authorship 450 I.
Remixing Methods and Theory 450 viii II. From the Particular to the General 451 A. Review of the Authorship Model 452 B. Talk Is Authorship 453 1.
Talk about Authorship Is Illuminating but Not Unique 453 2. Authenticity Stitches Talk about to Talk as 455 3. Semiotic Stitching of Token to Type 458 C. Scaling Up: Staking Social Claims by Talking about the Stakes 463 III.
Revisiting Three Data Examples 465 A. Lawyering as Authoring 465 1. Authoring Power at the Generic Boundary 465 2. Authenticity’s Temporal Tension 468 in the Semiotics of Legal Interaction 3.
From Semiotic Temporality to Social Position-Taking 476 4. Revisiting What “Happened” in Catfish 477 B. Performing as Authoring 482 1. Authoring Power through Generic Calibration 482 2.
Projecting Positions through Performance 483 3. Authenticity’s Temporal Tension in the Position-Taking of Performance 484 4. Revisiting Avatar and the “Lawyer Stick” 487 C. Producing (and Playing) as Authoring 492 1.
Authoring Power through Boundary-Making and Boundary-Crossing 492 2. A Game as the Game 494 3. Authenticity’s Temporal Tension in Boundary Play 496 ix 4. Revisiting Hacking in MMP 499 IV.
Conclusion 502 Chapter 13: Authorship (Remix) 504 I. Remix Authorship and a New Media Age of Anxiety 504 A. Remix Authorship as Perpetual Motion 506 1. Remix Diffused in Contemporary Attitudes toward Experience 507 2.
Remix Is Still Romantic 509 B. Toward a Remix Analytic 512 II. Remixing Theory, Rhyming with History 514 A. The Limits of Awareness 514 2.
Flexibility to Retheorize Authorship 516 B. Introducing Potential Trouble and Dissolving It 525 II. Articulating the Real Challenge 535 Bibliography 547 x LIST OF FIGURES 6.1 Summary of Language Use as Practice 144 6.2 Authorship–Ownership as a General Habitus of Communication 145 6.3 Modern (Romantic) Authorship as a Particular Habitus 153 6.4 Remix Authorship as a (Potential) Particular Habitus 158 6.5 Authorship–Ownership as a General Habitus of Communication 163 – with Authenticity Factor 9.1 Courtroom Layout for Catfish Summary Judgment Hearing 272 11.1 MMP Kickstarter Video (1) 404 11.2 MMP Kickstarter Video (2) 405 11.3 MMP Kickstarter Video (3) 406 11.4 MMP Kickstarter Video (4) 407 11.5 Producers’ Facebook Page 413 11.6 Nested Trello Cards 414 11.7 Rex Higgs Trello Main Page 416 11.9 Text from Rex 421 11.10 Clue from Rex 422 11.11 Scavenger Hunt Locations 422 11.14 Rex’s Blog 425 xi 11.16 Discussing the Transmission 427 11.17 Dario’s Twitter Feed 428 11.18 AIC Employee Social Media Pages 429 11.23 In-Game Press Coverage 436 12.1 Mapping Transmedia in Hollywood 462 12.2 Semiotic Temporality in Courtroom Conversation 471 12.3 (Spatio)Temporal Projection during Narrative Performance 483 12.4 Chronotopic Temporality of an ARG 496 xii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I thank Elinor Ochs for chairing my committee and guiding this project. I also thank Alessandro Duranti for early conversations that shaped it, as well as him, John Heritage, Paul Kroskrity, Sherry Ortner, and Angela Riley for devoting time and thought to it as members of my committee.
I am grateful to everyone I encountered during fieldwork and to April Arrglington for endorsing my use of data from the Miracle Mile Paradox. Financial support came from the National Science Foundation (Grant No. DGE-0707424), the Wenner-Gren Foundation, and the UCLA Graduate Division. Finally, I thank my parents for enabling me to accomplish this project, Lara Deeb for showing me how to, and Tom Farrell for making sure I did.
xiii VITA Education. cum laude, Harvard Law School 1999. in Social Studies magna cum laude, Harvard College Employment. Associate, Cleary Gottlieb LLP, New York Selected Publications.
Deeb, Hadi Nicholas. Boiling Down to the M-Word at the California Supreme Court. Journal of Linguistic Anthropology 23(1):41–64. Deeb, Hadi Nicholas.
Liberal Jurisprudence and the Literal Grammar of Marriage Equalit(y)(ies). Journal of Law, Culture and the Humanities [online 03-07-13; print to come]. Deeb, Hadi Nicholas and George E. Un para-site à l’OMC: en quête de lumière dans la Green Room.
In Des anthropologues à L’OMC: Scènes de la gouvernance mondiale. Marc Abélès, ed. Paris: CNRS Editions. Deeb, Hadi Nicholas and George E.
In the Green Room: An Experiment in Ethnographic Method at the WTO. Political and Legal Anthropology Review 34(1):51–76. Deeb, Hadi Nicholas. Constructing Restructuring: Legal Narrative, Language Ideology, and the Financial Rehabilitation of Iraq.
Duke Journal of Law & Contemporary Problems 73(4):109–28. Deeb, Hadi Nicholas. Book Review: The Language of Law School: Learning to ‘Think Like a Lawyer’ by Elizabeth Mertz. Talk delivered to the Department of Anthropology, UCLA, Los Angeles, Jan.
Liberal Jurisprudence and the Literal Grammar of Marriage Equalit(y)(ies). Talk delivered to the Department of Anthropology, UCLA, Los Angeles, Apr. Knowing the Territory: Intersections of Law and Anthropology. Panelist, Department of Anthropology, UCLA, Los Angeles, Feb.
Embodiments of Law: Establishing Personal Responsibility During U. Appellate Court Oral Arguments. Paper presented at the American Anthropological Association Annual Meeting, Montreal, Nov. Symposium on Legitimation Crises: Perspectives from Language, Interaction and Culture.
Center for Language, Interaction, and Culture, UCLA, Los Angeles, Feb. Realist and Empirical Legal Methods—Roundtable—When Legal Cultures Meet: Interdisciplinary, Institutional, and Global Perspectives. Roundtable discussant at the Law and Society Association Annual Meeting, Chicago, May 27. Linguistic Anthropology as Informant Bait in an Experiment with Para-Ethnography at the WTO.
Talk delivered to the Department of Anthropology, UCLA, Los Angeles, Jan. Co- presented with George E. Boiling Down to the M-Word: The Semiotic Enactment of Legal Realism and Legal Ideology in Oral Arguments before the Supreme Court of California. Talk delivered to the Law Faculty Monday Colloquium, Law School, UCLA, Los Angeles, Nov.
Debt Restructuring in Post-Conflict and Low-Income Countries. Roundtable discussant at A Modern History of Sovereign Debt conference, Washington College of Law, American University (with Duke Law School), Oct. Grants and Awards. Dissertation Year Fellowship, UCLA 2011.
Wenner-Gren Foundation and Osmundsen Initiative Dissertation Fieldwork Grant 2009–2011. National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellow 2008, 2012. Pauley Fellowship, UCLA 2008–2010, 2012. Mangasarian Scholarship, UCLA 2008.
Bright Award, UCLA 2002. Certificate of Distinction in Teaching, Harvard College 1999. Election to Phi Beta Kappa 1999. Hoopes Prize, Harvard College 1996–1998.
John Harvard Scholarship, Harvard College 1996. Detur Prize, Harvard College xv CHAPTER 1: Remixing Authorship I. In February 2012, members of Transmedia L.