ABSTRACT
This chapter introduces readers to the importance of licensing infrastructures to the entertainment industries and the work performed by licensors in managing how intellectual property is distributed. It identifies the roles played by the field’s trade organization, Licensing International, in delineating a professional identity and set of expectations for its members, in managing how the field has responded to shifts in how licensing operates at retail, in digital spaces, and globally, as well as in managing various tensions and normalizing hierarchies within the field. The chapter also establishes the importance of studying how trade shows like the Licensing Expo in Las Vegas operate as spaces where licensing infrastructures and logics are both normalized and challenged.
