Report: Creative Labour and the Role of Intellectual Property

• Main Author: Ned Rossiter
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Open Humanities Press 2003-01-01
• Series: Fibreculture Journal
• Subjects: media and communications; labour; intellectual property
• Online Access: http://one.fibreculturejournal.org/fcj-001

This article reports on findings from a survey posted to the fibreculture mailing list prior to the 3rd annual fibreculture meeting in Brisbane this July. Broadly speaking, the survey was interested in the extent to which the exploitation of intellectual property defines the condition of labour within the creative industries. At a methodological level, the article challenges prevailing assumptions about conducting empirical research in new media studies and enlists a processual media theory approach as a technique for drawing out the relationships between the condition of creative labour and reflexive, non-linear media-information systems of communication. Central to this article is an argument about the merits of the Italian autonomist concept of 'immaterial labour' against what I term 'disorganised labour'. The article suggests that the latter more accurately describes the current condition of creative labour. The article concludes by advocating the political strategy of organising creative labour in the form of networks rather than the traditional model of the party, as adopted by various unions.