Traditional Cultural Expressions in a Digital Environment
Lucerne, 8 and 9 June 2007
Traditional Cultural Expressions (TCE; also referred to as “expressions of folklore”) forms an essential part of cultural heritage and identity, and their protection and promotion are linked to the sustainability and furthering of cultural diversity.Despite the wide acknowledgement of the value of TCE and the need to safeguard its creative continuity, modern law had not been able to appropriately address all the pertinent intellectual property, cultural, economic and human rights issues. Indeed, the attempts to create TCE protection rules on the global level revealed substantial fragmentation. After the early success of a joint effort of the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) and the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) to elaborate a sui generis model for IP-type protection of TCE (UNESCO-WIPO Model Provisions, 1982), the international community showed no coherence in its approaches to TCE. The multiplicity of regional, national and civil society endeavoured to protect different aspects of TCE complicates the picture and deepens the fragmentation.
The emergence of a new digital environment, characterised by a plethora of channels for distribution of content, put the protection of TCE in a new dimension. The ability of the digital mode to express any type of information in a line of zeroes and ones and to transport this information through multiple channels created new challenges (but perhaps also opportunities) for the TCE protection.
There was an urgent need for a comprehensive understanding of the nature of TCE and its protection that could be then properly translated into the newly created complex digital environment.
The symposium, organised by i-call (International Communications and Art Law Lucerne) in the framework of the eDiversity project, sought to meet this need. It pinpointed, through transdisciplinary stocktaking and analyses, the core themes in the field of TCE, their interaction and intertwined development. It explored the possibilities for effective and efficient protection (and promotion) of TCE, in a digitised interconnected world, through the existing copyright mechanisms and went beyond them.
For the programme and the list of speakers, see here.
For a summary in German, see the newsletter here.
For some visual impressions of the TCE discussions, see here.
Intellectual Property and Traditional Cultural Expressions in a Digital Environment, Edward Elgar, Cheltenham/UK, 2008
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In the face of increasing globalisation and a collision between global communication systems and local traditions, this book offers innovative transdisciplinary analyses of the value of traditional cultural expressions (TCE) and suggests appropriate protection mechanisms for them. It combines approaches from history, philosophy, anthropology, sociology and law, and charts previously untravelled paths for developing new policy tools and legal designs, that go beyond conventional copyrights models. Its authors extend their reflections to the consideration of the specific features of the digital environment, which, despite enhancing the risks of misappropriation of traditional knowledge and creativity, may equally offer new opportunities for revitalising indigenous peoples’ values and provide for the sustainability of TCE.This book will appeal to scholars interested in multidisciplinary analyses of the fragmentation of international law in the field of intellectual property and traditional cultural expressions. It will also be valuable reading for those working on broader governance and human rights issues.
