Cultural appropriation is often defined as the ‘taking of intellectual property, cultural expressions or artefacts, history, and ways of knowledge’. Despite this apparent link to intellectual property, legal issues are only rarely mentioned in the current debate. Thus, to start with, this paper aims to fill this gap in identifying the possible bases in existing laws that may, at least in principle, justify claims of unlawful behaviour. As far as ethical considerations are concerned, the paper then notes a deep divide between those who fully endorse the notion of cultural appropriation and those who are resolutely opposed to it. This paper aims to give fair consideration to both sides of the argument, suggesting three categories of potentially unethical conduct. On this basis, the paper finally revisits possible legal responses from a normative perspective.

This paper discusses the promises and limits of a Peircean semiotic approach to the concept of style in law. It does so in two steps: first (1) by identifying the place of style within the structure of law as a system of signs, then (2) by conceptualising the link between law and style in the thought of C.S. Peirce and highlighting some of the insights from a Peircean take on legal semiotics that may contribute to our understanding of the role of style in making meaning in law. It is argued that, for a Peircean analysis of law, three levels can be distinguished, from the ‘surface structure’ down to the ‘deep structure’. It is at the middle level (that of the ‘basic structure’) that a semiotic approach can yield coherent insights in terms of style, by examining the symbols and metaphors that make for the expressibility of ‘habits’, namely experience-based patterns of action and interpretation.