Illegal Literature: Toward A Disruptive Creativity by David S. Roh (review)

All of us who do editorial work—and who doesn’t?—struggle daily with many forms of copyright issues that seem all the more absurd because the rise of the Internet has radically modified both the practice of textual and other reproduction (technically speaking, one can copy and circulate all kinds of information in just one click) and the very attitude people have toward the idea of reusing and sharing information (digital-native prosumers do not feel that they are infringing on copyrights when they appropriate texts and images). At first glance, David S. Roh’s book seems to take sides with those who make a radical plea for the “liberation” of information and data, that is, for the dismantling of copyright as it currently exists (yet not in the same way in all countries, for place matters in this context). What makes this book so interesting, however, is Roh’s nuanced approach to the stakes of “free” information, where “free” is used in the double sense of the word: unlimited by legal and commercial regulations on the one hand and involving no costs on the other hand. Illegal Literature is not a libertarian manifesto claiming the right to reject all that opposes, restricts or criminalizes the free use of protected material, but a sound reflection on possible alternatives to the almost-absolute divide between legal and illegal practices, a divide that Roh thinks is damaging for everybody. Too strong a divide between the legal and the illegal is not only an obstacle to creativity and innovation, it is also in the long run problematic for those who currently benefit from the absolute legal protection of creative work (authors, publishers, copyright holders).

Roh’s book opens with an excellent discussion on the notion of creativity, before moving on to some sound arguments on disruptive creativity. Concerning creativity, Roh relies upon a subtle and complex but well-built theoretical framework that borrows insights from three fields: first, cultural studies, where Raymond Williams’s distinction between residual, dominant and emergent structures of feeling help build an argument against essentialism (for instance, the essential difference between “good” and “bad” writing); second, polysystems theory, as elaborated by Itamar Even-Zohar, who offers a supple and open way of tackling the interaction between canonical and marginal or peripheral writing; and third, Russian Formalism, here studied via Victor Erlich’s well-known book, which puts a strong emphasis on the Bakhtinian notions of dialogue and parody. Disruptive creativity, on the other hand, is also discussed from different points of view, enabling Roh to maintain a certain distance from the neoliberal sense of creative destruction (Schumpeter). Finally, the reflection on non-canonical and unauthorized reuse of protected material brings Roh to distinguish between three different types of illegal cultural production, namely plagiarism, piracy and parody. For, unlike plagiarism and piracy, parody is the only type of illegal literature that really attacks the heart of the system, which is a combination of the author as the unique maker and absolute individual producer of a work of art and the copyright system that prevents any kind of unauthorized reuse. Plagiarism and piracy do not aim at disrupting the position of author and copyright in this way, they only try to use it to their benefit. Parody instead is a practice that really disrupts author and copyright.

Before discussing the three case studies that complement and illustrate his claims, Roh also addresses the advantages of a more open and relaxed approach to authorship and copyright legislation, but he always does so by considering the larger context of these issues, that is, the triple combination of culture (our worship of the individual author as unique genius), economy (the distribution system that makes the work of individual creators accessible to a larger audience) and law (the copyright system that does not defend the rights of the users but those...