11.16.08
Traditional Cultural Expression, Third Panel
“Indigenous Perspectives on Intellectual/Cultural Property Rights and Access” was the theme of the third panel at the Traditional Cultural Expression Conference in Washington, D.C., featuring three speakers who represented native people from the United States, New Zealand, and Australia. The panel followed a luncheon talk by Peter Jaszi, law professor and director of the Glushko-Samuelson Intellectual Property Clinic in the Washington College of Law at American University. A self-described intellectual property skeptic, Jaszi said the main function of intellectual property law has become to preserve the old business models and generate profit, and this constitutes a perversion of its original intent, which was to foster creativity and enable people to earn a living from their work.
It struck some at the conference as ironic that now, just when disenfranchised people are lobbying for a piece of the action, the legal establishment is saying the system isn’t working. Jaszi’s point, however, was that we need to examine what can be done to protect traditional cultural expression. He told a story about some surprising findings in Indonesia where traditional music protection has clashed with young musicians who want to play interpretations or variations on the traditonal, a conflict that ended up being echoed by many of the speakers at the conference. “A minimalist approach is best calculated to avoid the pathologies of intellectual property,” Jaszi said. He was told repeatedly by idigenous people with whom he had worked that “the law stuff is not what they need; they need real support now.” That translates into government ensuring better exposure in the media and in schools and supporting local revitalization projects, including performance spaces, and finding ways of connecting arts communities with discerning consumers. Jaszi’s talk led to an interesting discussion—with no general agreement—about the offensiveness of the updating being done by young people when they leave the indigenous community and reinterpret the traditional in the context of the contemporary.
Loriene Roy, immediate past president of the American Library Association and professor at the University of Texas at Austin, joked with the group about cultural blunders by talking about her own Anishinabe heritage and some of the gaffes she herself has made while learning about it. Roy is currently working with PBS on We Shall Remain, scheduled to air on public television in April 2009, on developing a multimedia toolkit to help libraries use the American Experience series to establish native history as an essential part of American history.
New Zealander Spencer Lilley, Maori services manager for the Massey University Library System, began his talk with an ancient Maori chant, leading into a discussion of Maori cultural and intellectual property rights. He presented a brief history of New Zealand and showed examples of Maori tattoos being used in fashion marketing and in sporting events in ways that native people find offensive and exploitative.
Martin Nakata, chair of Australian indigenous education at the University of Technology in Sydney, reported on his research on indigenous knowledge in Australia. He pointed out that 40,000 to 60,000 years of knowledge being passed on through oral tradition is not to be interpreted as entertainment. He offered an off-the-cuff, spot-on answer to the question, What does it mean to be indigenous? “We didn’t name the place, the place named us,” he said.