Intellectual and cultural property
Rather than a single project, the theme of copyright relating to cultural issues and heritage has been a research interest of Professor Fiona Macmillan over the past twenty years. During this period she has been the recipient of several grants, and participated in a number of projects in collaboration with other researchers or institutions; and produced a wide range of articles and book sections (please see her BIROn profile).
Professor Macmillan has been an active participant in several research networks, having herself previously established an international, multidisciplinary research network to consider new directions in copyright law (funded by an AHRC award). She is a member of the executive committee, and was previously co-director of the International Society for the History and Theory of Intellectual Property (ISHTIP) which aims to promote and support scholarly investigation of the theory and national histories of patent, copyright, and 'related' rights in both European and non-European countries. Her recent book, Intellectual and Cultural Property: Between Market and Community (see below) was launched at an ISHTIP flagship event in 2021.
Professor Macmillan’s focus has been increasingly on:
- intellectual property law in the context of political economy and of post-colonial critiques of the present geopolitical order
- how intellectual property and cultural heritage are generated and exploited by market forces
- the balance of rights between individuals and those of communities
- the tension between safeguarding cultural heritage and disseminating knowledge about culture
- recognition of the destruction of non-tangible cultural heritage
- how to protect intangible cultural heritage and how this competes with the intellectual property regime
- how cultural heritage communities are formed and recognised
- the challenges of using legal taxonomies, perspectives and methodologies at the interface of intellectual property and cultural heritage.
RECENT OUTPUTS
A selection of her recent outputs on this theme is listed below:
- Macmillan, Fiona (2021) Still Life Between Cultural and Intellectual Property? Western Dualism and the Regulation of Cultural Production. Leiden: Brill Research Perspectives in Art and Law (in press)
- Macmillan, Fiona (2021) Intellectual and Cultural Property: Between Market and Community. London and New York: Routledge. ISBN 9781138388062
- Macmillan, Fiona (2021) Intellectual property and cultural heritage: towards interdisciplinarity. In: Calboli, I. and Montagnani, M.L. (eds.) Handbook of Intellectual Property Research Lenses, Methods, and Perspectives. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780198826743.
- Macmillan, Fiona (2018) Contemporary intangible cultural heritage: between community and market. In: Waelde, C. and Cummings, C. and Pavis, M. and Enright, H. (eds.) Research Handbook on Contemporary Intangible Cultural Heritage: Law and Heritage. Cheltenham, UK: Edward Elgar Publishing. ISBN 9781786434005.
- Macmillan, Fiona (2018) Cultural heritage and the unseen community. In: Whately, S. and Waelde, C. and Brown, A. and Harmon, S. (eds.) Dance, Disability and Law: Invisible Difference. Intellect Ltd. ISBN 9781783208685.
- Macmillan, Fiona (2017) Heritage, imperialism and commodification: how the West can always do it best. Europa Ethnica 74 (3-4), pp. 114-124. ISSN 0014-2492.
- Macmillan, Fiona (2016) Cultural property and community rights to cultural heritage. In: Xu, T. and Allain, J. (eds.) Property and Human Rights in a Global Context. Human Rights Law in Perspective. Oxford, UK: Hart Publishing. ISBN 9781849467261.
- Macmillan, Fiona (2015) Arts festivals as cultural heritage in a copyright saturated world. In: Porsdam, H. (ed.) Copyrighting Creativity: Creative Values, Cultural Heritage Institutions and Systems of Intellectual Property. Farnham, UK: Ashgate, pp. 95-116. ISBN 9781472431653.