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Dr Melanie Stockton-Brown

Melanie Stockton-Brown
  • Lecturer in Intellectual Property Law
  • Director of Widening Participation in the School of Law
  • Academic Tutor

Office

2.08

Building location

Foxhill House

Areas of interest

  • Intellectual Property Law, in particular Copyright and Patent
  • AI law, especially Generative AI and Copyright
  • Tattoos and the Law
  • Fashion Law
  • Cultural Heritage and Intellectual Property
  • Gender and Law
  • Socio-Legal research
  • Creative research methodologies
  • Ethnographic research 

Postgraduate supervision

I welcome expressions of interest for prospective students in my areas of interest.

Teaching

Foundation programme modules:

  • Introduction to Foundations of Law (Contract)

 

LLB modules:

  • Intellectual Property Law
  • English Legal System and Skills
  • Technology, Privacy and Internet Regulation

 

LLM modules:

  • Contemporary Issues in Intellectual Property Law
  • Emerging Issues in Data Protection and Copyright Law

Background

Prior to joining the University of Reading in 2024, I was a Principal Academic in Law at Bournemouth University. I was also a member of the Centre for Intellectual Property Policy & Management (CIPPM) at Bournemouth University. 

I am an experienced intellectual property academic, and am passionate about how intellectual property laws can help to encourage creativity, and protect the work of historically marginalised communities in this area of law, including women and Indigenous and First Nations peoples. I am interested in how copyright law interacts with archives and cultural heritage institutions (such as galleries, libraries and museums), and this was the focus in my PhD research. I completed my PhD in Copyright and Cultural Heritage Law in 2021, on out-of commerce works in film archives under the Copyright in the EU’s Digital Single Market Directive.

My research is socio-legal, situating the law within the wider socio-economic and cultural context. I am currently carrying out research into copyright law and tattoos, to explore how copyright law in the UK (and internationally) interacts with tattoos. I am also particularly passionate about gender equality, and bring a feminist perspective to all of my research.

Academic qualifications

  • PhD (Bournemouth University), 2021. 
  • LLM (Hons) from the University of Sunderland, 2015
  • LLB (Hons),fromAberystwyth University, 2014

Awards and honours

  • Skin (2023): Film chosen and exhibited online film festival Lift-Off Sessions in London in 2023.
  • Beloved (2021): International film award for Best Newcomer at the English Riveria Film Festival, 2021.
  • Beloved (2021): Film included in film festival programme at Grito! queer horror film festival in Brazil in 2021; Lift-Off Online Sessions film festival in London in  2021; and as part of the Frankenstein Factory Film Festival in Italy in 2023.
  • FrankenZine: Voice, Copyright, and Women Authors zine selected to be included in the permanent queer & feminist zine library at an international art Ad Minoliti exhibit at the BALTIC in Gateshead in 2021.
  • Emerging Scholar Award (Eleventh International Conference on the Inclusive Museum, 02 Jul 2018).

 

External Grants Awarded:

  • Shared Post-Human Imagination: Human-AI Collaboration in Media Creation, Co-I on AHRC BRAID grant involving international partners from industry and academia, 2024.
  • Tattooing in the Archive (SocioLegal Studies Association, 2023).
  • Pushing Back: copyright law and film archives (Socio-Legal Studies Association, 2022).
  • PhD Studentship (Bournemouth University, 2017-2020).

Professional bodies/affiliations

  • I am a Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy
  • I am an External Examiner for the University of Sunderland. 
  • Member of the Socio-Legal Studies Association
  • Journal reviewer for the International Journal for the Semiotics of Law

Doctoral Thesis

“Out-of-Commerce, Out of Mind: Widening Public Access to Out-of-Commerce Copyright Works in Film Archives through the DSM Directive”, 2021. Available here: https://eprints.bournemouth.ac.uk/35401/1/STOCKTON-BROWN%2C%20Melanie_Ph.D._2020.pdf

Journal articles

  • Stockton-Brown, M., 2023. Inking Cultures: Authorship, AI Generated Art and Copyright Law in Tattooing. International Journal for the Semiotics of Law, 36 (5), 2037- 2065.
  • Stockton-Brown, M., 2023. Ghosts and Punks: The Aesthetics of Copyright Law in Graphic Novels and Comics. International Journal for the Semiotics of Law, 36 (2), 509- 527. Stockton-
  • Stockton-Brown, M., 2022. To Leave A Whisper Of Myself In The World: A Zinester Testimony. ZINES, 4, 51-58. 
  • Stockton-Brown, M., 2022. Out-of-Commerce How the Existing Copyright Practices in Film Archives Impact on Widening Public Access to Cultural Heritage. Journal of Intellectual Property, Information Technology and ECommerce Law, 13 (1), 3-19.
  • Stockton-Brown, M., 2021. Out-of-commerce Copyright Works in EU Film Archives: A Solution? Journal of Film Preservation, 105, 29-37.
  • Brown, M., 2020. “Exploring Article 8 of the Copyright Directive: Hope for Cultural Heritage". Annali italiani del diritto d'autore, della cultura e dello spettacolo (AIDA Italian Annals of Copyright XXVIII)

Book Chapters

  • Stockton-Brown, M., 2022. Padlet poetry: student poetry and art reflections as critical legal learning. In: Betts, T. and Oprandi, P., eds. 100 Ideas for Active Learning. Open Press at University of Sussex.
  • Stockton-Brown, M., 2022. Group crosswords as formative assessment tasks. In: Betts, T. and Oprandi, P., eds. 100 Ideas for Active Learning. Open Press at University of Sussex.
  • Brown, M., 2020. “Representing the Modified Body”. The International Encyclopedia of Gender, Media, and Communication, 3 Volume Set. Wiley-Blackwell.
  • Brown, M., 2019. “Moral Copyright Law: An Opportunity to Review the Current Law after Brexit”. Brexit: A Way Forward. Vernon Press.
  • Brown, M., 2019. “The Oral Contraceptive Pill”. A History of Intellectual Property in 50 Objects. Cambridge University Press.

Short-films

  • Beloved, 2021. Film available here: https://vimeo.com/563605293.
  • Skin: Artificial Authorship in Tattooing, 2023.

Zines

  • Stockton-Brown, M., 2024. Tattooing the Archive
  • Stockton-Brown, M., 2023. CopyTatts: Tattooing, AI Art, and Copyright Law
  • Stockton-Brown, M., 2022. Pushing Back: FIAF & Copyright
  • Stockton-Brown, M., 2021. Crop-Circles: A Copyright Regime of Practices within Film Archives
  • Stockton-Brown, M., 2021. FrankenZine: Voice, Copyright, and Women Authors
  • Stockton-Brown, M., 2021.  Finding the Lost Films: Out-of-Commerce Works in the Archive.

Media

  • Guest expert on Beneath the Skin "You Wouldn't Download a Tattoo" podcast, Beneath the Skin podcast, 12 Feb 2024.

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