Copyright as Enclosure: State, Capital, and Primitive Accumulation

• In Event: 4447 - Open Topic on Marxist Sociology

Abstract

Record contracts deploy copyright as the means through which record labels turn musicians into workers. In this paper, I discuss Karl Marx’s analysis of England’s land enclosure acts. Then I demonstrate the parallels between the process of land enclosure, and what I call, copyright enclosure. Many describe copyright as an intellectual property right, but it is not property in the traditional sense. Rather, law creates a set of statutory rights that some describe using an analogy to property. In turn, copyright law allows record labels to profit from musician labor similar to how land enclosure allowed landowners to profit from farm workers’ labor. This paper highlights the institutional incentive to sign a record contract under the current political economy of the recording industry. This process ultimately creates an underclass of musicians who precariously work for record labels without rights as workers.

Author

• David Michael Arditi, University of Texas at Arlington