Book Review: ‘Creating Selves: Intellectual Property and the Narration of Culture by Johanna Gibson

In Creating Selves, Johanna Gibson presents a radical proposal to recreate the notion (and thus the law) of intellectual property as a series of relational, networked dialogues, exchanges and interactions to replace the intellectual property ‘system’ or ‘institution’. In brief terms, this book argues for the construction of a new ethic for intellectual property discourse, and to find a way of disconnecting the notion of creativity from intellectual property, and, ultimately, the system of production and enterprise with which it has become intertwined. It needs to be pointed out that the argument she presents is based in a deeply theoretical reframing of the entire discourse of the ‘intellectual property system’. A quick sketch will help traverse some of its complex terrain.