From: 3E@GjyTjR.com   
      
   Welcome to Prout Gems   
      
   Lets look at culture ...   
      
   Progressive thinking persons should create dynamic political policies in   
   this regard and the following articles can help to achieve this.   
      
   ---   
      
   PROTECTING INDIGENOUS PEOPLES' FOLKLORE THROUGH COPYRIGHT LAW   
      
   Dharmadeva   
      
   While written in 1994 (with some legal changes since - albeit   
   insignificant for the substance of the discussion), this essay continues   
   to point out the need for radical reform in this area.   
      
   Folklore reflects a people's culture. It is expressed through music,   
   dance, drama, craft, sculpture, painting, literature and other means of   
   creativity which generally require little dependence on high technology.   
   It tends to be passed on from generation to generation within a   
   community from memory, by word of mouth, or visually. The particular   
   community to which the folklore is recognized as belonging is both its   
   conveyer and user and so works of folklore are easily absorbed into the   
   community's culture and social life. In this respect folklore is part of   
   the collective consciousness of a culture. It is not just a static   
   replication of the past - but rather a dynamic and living entity which   
   evolves with the culture.   
      
   If the cultural dynamism of that collective consciousness is destroyed   
   then the whole community's backbone and collective sentiment is also   
   shattered. Also, forces outside the community may denigrate the   
   practical use and social value of its folklore which has been intimately   
   crafted for particular ceremonies or other forms of group participation   
   and which is related to a continuum of events and circumstances within   
   the community.   
      
   This onslaught has already happened in varying degrees to many   
   indigenous cultures around the world. The onslaught of pseudo-culture or   
   materialistic 'cultural' values through colonization and now   
   globalization of 'culture' by mass advertising of materialistic values   
   and products without considering the effect on community cohesiveness,   
   ecological systems or mental and spiritual expansion of the people   
   testifies to this. Indeed, as part of this global pseudo-culture and   
   psycho-economic exploitation many works of folklore are seen as   
   collector's items and as forms of material wealth rather than   
   expressions of indigenous people's aspirations and communal heritage.   
      
   Misappropriation of works of folklore   
      
   However, it is not only physical things that have been or are taken away   
   as collector's items from the cultural heritage of indigenous societies   
   such as the Australian Aborigines, the Maori of New Zealand and Indian   
   tribes in the USA and Canada. Many expressions of folklore, which are   
   transient in form or difficult to obtain because they are considered   
   sacred, but nevertheless are lasting in a social sense because of their   
   integral richness and importance in collective and individual life, are   
   also under attack through commercialization and cheap imitations.   
      
   Examples of this include printing sacred or traditional designs on   
   T-shirts without the indigenous culture's permission, popularizing songs   
   or dances for tourist attraction and re-enacting ceremonies out of   
   context in the name of tourism. Even if some of these may not   
   necessarily be considered wrong, nevertheless, proper consideration   
   should be given to the 'owners' of the culture from which the creative   
   works have sprung. And to go one step further, control of the use of   
   those cultural works may need to be legally vested in the tribe or other   
   indigenous unit from which they derive in order to ensure that the   
   sanctity and moral rights attached to the works remain intact. This   
   would also help considerably in preserving the language, literature and   
   spiritual aspirations of the people which are often so intertwined with   
   their folklore.   
      
   In nearly all countries of the world today, creative expressions or   
   works are protected by some form of copyright laws. However, modern   
   copyright laws still do not give sufficient scope for the protection of   
   works of folklore from exploitation - particularly indigenous folklore.   
   The reasons for this are primarily that the age-old character of many   
   works of folklore and long history of indigenous cultures usually means   
   that the creators of folklore are anonymous and this is also linked to   
   the communal ownership of folklore compared to individual ownership.   
   Further, the usual length of copyright protection is the lifetime of the   
   author or creator plus 50 to 60 years thereafter. The challenge for   
   progressive minded legislators is to provide a legal regime that gives   
   the required form of protection for indigenous peoples folklore. This   
   cannot be done without taking into account the community ownership of   
   works of folklore.   
      
   Collective ownership of indigenous peoples' folklore   
      
   The close identification of indigenous folklore with community life has   
   as its corollary the notion of community control of intellectual and   
   creative works so that to impart total control to the individual   
   creators of these works is seen as undermining part of the foundations   
   of that community. This means that an individual's creative work attains   
   a place and is attributed with some meaning within the indigenous   
   culture when it is somehow co-extensive with the performance of communal   
   obligations and adherence to communal requirements.   
      
   As a result, the creative expression of an individual or group of   
   individuals is considered to be an expression and product of and for the   
   community as a whole. This is particularly so where current works are   
   derived from older works whose original creation cannot be ascribed to   
   any definite persons. For newly created or recent creative works this   
   situation gives rise to ownership rights within indigenous cultures   
   which are at odds with Western legal concepts such as absolute   
   individual ownership and freedom of alienability of property. Western   
   concepts of individual creation and individual ownership reflected in   
   copyright law through such exclusive rights as reproduction and   
   adaptation, publishing and recording, performing, and broadcasting   
   rights do not necessarily hold up for indigenous peoples.   
      
   For indigenous peoples it is the aesthetic, social and cultural elements   
   within a creative work that are determinative of its value which has to   
   do with the sentiments and emotions attached to the work and its use and   
   enjoyment. The emphasis is on a spiritual synthesis with the community   
   rather than materialistic privatization of rights. This construct of   
   value represents a communal 'moral right' or moral concern with the work   
   and surpasses whatever economic advantages can be gained from the work   
   by its sale or disposal to others. A system of legal protection for   
      
   [continued in next message]   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)