That Intellectual Property Right System. Commercialization of Art - Essay Example

Art after appropriation thinks through and attempts to move beyond the appropriation paradigms that so widely marked the Western art world and its peripheries during the decade from mid 1970's to late 1980's. The terms appropriations stands for relocation, annexation or theft or cultural property, whether objects, ideas or notations. It is under written by the formation of disciplines like anthropology, archeology, and allied epistemologies of description collecting, comparison and evaluation. Consideration of cultural appropriation has given rise to several sustained enquiries into the reach and restriction of intellectual property and copyright law, governmental restriction and reparations and questions of ownership of community rights. Cuban writer, Geraldo Mosquera has addressed the paradox that the globalize vortex of mixing, multiplying appropriation and re-semanticising takes place in a situation when all cultures steal from one another either from dominance or subordinations. (Welchman, 2001). Intellectual property rights system and misappropriation of indigenous knowledge without prior knowledge and consent of indigenous people bring to mind a feeling of anger and a mentality being cheated as also helpless in knowing nothing about intellectual property rights and indigenous knowledge piracy. This is equal to robbing indigenous person of their resources and knowledge through monopoly rights. The intellectual property rights system, mainly favors the industrialized countries in North having enough resources for claiming copyrights, resulting in exploitation and appropriation of hereditary assets, knowledge etc. as also the culture of local people for marketable and commercial purpose. We can also see that Intellectual Property right system ignores the contribution of the indigenous people and do not value the close interrelationship between the indigenous people and their knowledge as also the genetic resources of which the Intellectual property right system is taking advantage, and it is really painful for the original authority as the Intellectual property right system is concerned only with the benefits that they are gaining from the profit-making exploitation of these resources. There is a dire need to protect and safeguard indigenous knowledge today, as also the self determination is important. In Asian regions, many indigenous people have come together now and people have started realizing the importance and the need to protect their indigenous knowledge and culture, and aim towards reclaiming their right to self determination and indigenous knowledge. However, today slowly the indigenous people have started realizing the importance of the issue and have to give importance to the following points regarding activities related to indigenous knowledge and culture: 1) Try to strengthen indigenous people's organizations and communities, which will enable them to collectively address the local concerns related to the indigenous knowledge and the intellectual property rights system. 2) The indigenous people should continue to strengthen their self determinations , as this can help them stand against the threats by intellectual property rights systems on the indigenous knowledge and genetic resources. 3) The level of awareness among the indigenous organizations and communities should be raised more which will help them being more aware about the changing global trends and developments in the Intellectual property rights system as they apply to life forms and indigenous knowledge. (Possey & Dutfield, 1996). "Commodification of art comes under both privileging the exchange value over the work performed by art and of evaluating the importance of the materiality of the art work". "The approach to art which can be developed from Irigarays writing is a result of two factors, one the critique of commodification and of the model of experience based on specularity of male desire, and other side the rethinking of opposition between the sensible and intelligible through poetics of the elements." The commodification of art replicates the gesture of devaluation and erasure of the materiality of the work of art of what Heidegger describes as the thingly character of art works. The main requirement is to take any kind of art as a commodity and then invest the said art with exchange value which becomes an abstraction from the work performed by art and from its inscription in the materiality of the artwork. (Ziarek, 2001). There are many instances where commodification of earlier unprotected works of art, culture, beliefs and lifestyles has taken place. In some cases, the original source or civilization that created it could not be found. Using art of the now defunct Mayan civilization is an example. Modern publications, films and parodies of the Aesop's' Fables is also an instance of such a situation. The ancient fables and stories of India like the Buddhist Jataka Tales and The Panchathantra are yet other examples. There are numerous instances where such material has been commoditized by various individual and organizations for commercial profit. It is also a fact that such publications themselves have taken copyright protection. This is also true with regard to music that has been handed over to us from different generations. Such music copyright violations exist in every part of the world. But as mentioned earlier, since no documentation as to its origin or creator/creators exist, it would be difficult to implement intellectual property rights even if an attempt is to be made. There is an interesting argument that pertains to such artifacts for which no direct owners, creators or decedents could be traced. "Does a Huma Eructus skull belong as much to white-skinned descendents, as it dies to the African paleoanthropologist who found it, to the villagers in whose territory it had resided." (Riley, 2004, P. 313). Even though a human skull has no creative value like music and art, the argument that the authors have raised can be applied to these areas as well. A more contemporary and relevant instance of exploitation of indigenous art is discussed here. The case n question is the commercial use of Maori art of New Zealand. Use of Maori art began as early as 1907 when Royal Doulton, a British manufacturer of cups and saucers introduced their products with drawings of the Maori culture. Since then such art has been reproduced in postage stamps in New Zealand and printed as designs on coins. Air New Zealand has reproduced this art in the tail section of their aircraft. It has even entered the world of pop music when a tattoo of Maori art was etched on the left shoulder of Robbie Williams. Sports manufacturers like Adidas have borrowed such art as design for boots and fashion houses and magazines have reproduced the same for their commercial use. But the Maori population in New Zealand has not sat idle regarding the use of their indigenous art for commercial use. In 2002, Te Waka Toi which incidentally is the Maori funding arm of the national arts funding agency introduced a Maori trade mark called 'Toi Iho'. This trade mark is considered to be an indication of authentic Maori art. Moreover the Maori tribe has brought a claim called the Wai 262 against the government for its inability to protect its property that includes flora, fauna and cultural intellectual properties. "Unlike previous claims, which have focused on real property or specific resources rights, this claim focuses on the intellectual resources of the Maori." (Shand, 2002, p. 2). What conclusion can be arrived at solving the issue is the question. Who should benefit from the commercialization of such works Even though used in a different context, a possible solution can be arrived at with the consensus of all the parties concerned. This solution is based the policy of "Leave Enough Behind", also known as 'Locke's proviso'. Written in the 1700's called the Second treatise of Government, Locke is of the opinion that whatever is derived from nature by a person has ownership to it, but with limitation. He argues that any person who has claimed ownership should leave something behind for common good. "You may object that if gathering of the acorns etc. creates a right to them, then anyone may hoard as much as he likes. I answer: Not so. The very law of nature that in this way gives us property also sets limits to that property." (Lecke, 2008, P. 12). It is ideal that indigenous intellectual property rights be settled in the same way. Let everyone concerned have some benefit from it part from the person who first commercially exploited it. Reference Welchman, John C. (2001). Art After Appropriation: Essays on Art in 1990's. Routledge. Retrieved June 12, 2008, from http://books.google.co.in/booksid=kQjdlHhI24oC&pg=PA1&dq=Appropriation+and+intellectual+property+rights+of+art&sig=Qu6xsoI9TJ4feN9BSMl6awY11Mo#PPP1,M1 Possey, Darrell A & Dutfield, Graham. (1996). Beyond Intellectual Property. IDRC. Retrieved June 12, 2008, from http://books.google.co.in/booksid=HZJ6KPQBc_EC&pg=PA220&dq=Appropriation+and+intellectual+property+rights&lr=&sig=DxxfkBPzMprDBEq5NKT8Uq_Jrmk#PPP1,M1 Ziarek, Krzysztof. (2001). The History of Experience: Modernity, The Avant-Gard, and the Event. Northwestern University Press. Retrieved June 12, 2008, from http://books.google.co.in/booksid=DR66PnniFrcC&pg=PA142&dq=commodification+of+art&lr=&as_brr=0&sig=-nzdf9_a4PEm7ql5GDjlsOoXS5A Riley, Mary. (2004). Indigenous Intellectual Property Rights: Legal Obstacles and Innovative Solutions. Rowman Altamira. P. 313. Retrieved June 12, 2008, from http://books.google.co.in/booksid=ZZKw9WTmq4sC&pg=PA311&lpg=PA311&dq=commodification+appropriation+IPR&source=web&ots=t2ue3atIHD&sig=_Lte6o9S9zoiH1m3KNYNSqlnwaE&hl=en#PPA313,M1 Shand, Peter. (2002). Scenes from the Colonial Catwalk: Cultural Appropriation, Intellectual Property Rights and Fashion: Introduction. The University of Australia. P. 2. Retrieved June 12, 2008, from http://socrates.berkeley.edu/caforum/volume3/pdf/shand.pdf Lecke, John. (2008). Second Treatise of Government. Chapter 5: Property. P. 12, Para 31. Retrieved June 12, 2008, from http://www.earlymoderntexts.com/pdf/locke2tr.pdf eidegger describes as the thing Read More