[At-Large] Traditional Cultural Expressions #ICANN #WIPO

Wolf Ludwig wolf.ludwig at comunica-ch.net
Thu Jan 30 00:38:55 UTC 2014


Dear Sala and all,

this is just to confirm that I entirely agree with your elaborations and thoughts below on "how to protect traditional knowledge and indigenous communities" from any usurpation by the right-holders industry. Some of us may recall stories about traditionals like "In the jungle ..." and related rights disputes -- see:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Lion_Sleeps_Tonight

And our At-Large community could be an advocate for such a cultural heritage being kept in the public domain. According to my (personal) observations, right holders and their legions of IP lawyers, collecting societies etc. ab/use the Berne Convention (you mentioned below) more and more for unjustified or biased IP claims and thus undermining the Public Domain! In Switzerland organizations I work with have observed and queried several of such cases where right holders or collecting societies are systematically pursuing particular (monetary) interests by harming any public interests or cultural heritages ...

Just another field to closely observe and follow up in the public interest!

Thanks and regards,
Wolf


Salanieta T. Tamanikaiwaimaro wrote Thu, 30 Jan 2014 09:17:
>Dear All,
>
>Some of you may remember the *ALAC statement on Community Priority
>Evaluation Guidelines* that was unanimously passed. There are certain
>developments within on moves to protect Traditional Cultural Expressions
>through WIPO etc. To see the developments in WIPO and the Draft Articles in
>this area, in English, Spanish, French and Russian, visit:
>http://www.wipo.int/meetings/en/doc_details.jsp?doc_id=245543
>
>As you can imagine, the At Large community has many people who have an
>interest in this space either from community based concerns in the
>protection of such expressions etc.
>
>A little known fact is that Vanda Scartazeni used to head and manage
>Brazil's equivalent of the United States Trademark and Patent Office
>(USPTO). There are others in the At Large community who have been involved
>in various Intellectual Property linked matters such as Hong and Seth etc.
>Instead of always being reactionary to public policy debates and dialogue,
>it is critical that issues such as Traditional Cultural Expressions and
>protections in the wake of lack of appropriate mechanisms be protected as
>captured within the spirit of the Statement of the ALAC.
>
>Strategies should be deployed within At Large  on how to best protect
>them. Care
>should be taken to protect "traditional knowledge" and "indigenous
>communities" that may not have the technological savvy to navigate the
>systems effectively.
>
>For example, should Louis Vuitton decide to apply for .maasai and where a
>Maasai Elder is in the process of protecting their traditional name. Ron
>Layton of Light Years IP argues that the Maasai brand is worth $10million.
>See: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-22617001
>
> Intellectual Property and Traditional cultural expressions have been the
>subject of global discussions as early as 1967 when there was an amendment
>to the *Berne Convention for the Protection of Artistic and Literary
>Works*for the protection of unpublished and anonymous works.
>
>Best Regards,
>Sala
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