Discuss: Event Discussion
Discussion Board for participants of Documentation and archiving the peforming arts:
Issues of Intellectual PropertyBack to Forum List >> Back to Topic List >> VIEW ALL POSTS
welcome to the discussion
Posted Thursday, 23 April 2009 By Shubha Chaudhuri, ARCE
Hello all, and welcome to the website and discussion board.
we have the issues you think that should be addressed at the workshop from the forms you sent us.. most of us have concerns about the documentation we do and about publishing the materials.
In my field work of late, I have been looking at the issue of cultural ownership that artists or performers and communities express. Where does the right of the performer intersect with the general rights of the community to whom the tradition belongs.
I would be interested in hearing about your views or your take on this .. or in fact any other issue!
Shubha
we have the issues you think that should be addressed at the workshop from the forms you sent us.. most of us have concerns about the documentation we do and about publishing the materials.
In my field work of late, I have been looking at the issue of cultural ownership that artists or performers and communities express. Where does the right of the performer intersect with the general rights of the community to whom the tradition belongs.
I would be interested in hearing about your views or your take on this .. or in fact any other issue!
Shubha
rights of creators, performers and the public
Posted Tuesday, 28 April 2009 By Nirmita Narasimhan
Dear Shubha,
I have been musing about something similar for some time now, although my ponderings have been more limited within my area of involvement- which is karnatic classical music. I have had oppurtunity to interact with many musicians as well as been witnessing the radically changing trends in the field. If you look at a classical concert today- about 30%of it is comprised spontaneous creative music like raga alaap, tan etc and the rest of the 70% is the rendition of compositions created by composers of previous centuries. It is well known that any art which has been handed down through oral tradition is done so first by learning the art of reproduction of what your guru teaches and then after acquiring a certain proficiency in it, by improvising upon it. Composers whose compositions are sung in concerts, never even dreamt that their compositions are going to be staple food for musicians today to earn their livelihood. In fact all the three members of the Trinity of Karnatic music actually lived in poverty rather than compose for a patron or sell their music. On the contrary, they freely sung and taught their music, which would not be available to us today, but for the interventions of their students who learnt, recorded and propogated their music in subsequent generations.
Hence I find it very ironic that all musicians today without exception are carrying on a profession of giving concerts by singing their compositions.
I have been musing about something similar for some time now, although my ponderings have been more limited within my area of involvement- which is karnatic classical music. I have had oppurtunity to interact with many musicians as well as been witnessing the radically changing trends in the field. If you look at a classical concert today- about 30%of it is comprised spontaneous creative music like raga alaap, tan etc and the rest of the 70% is the rendition of compositions created by composers of previous centuries. It is well known that any art which has been handed down through oral tradition is done so first by learning the art of reproduction of what your guru teaches and then after acquiring a certain proficiency in it, by improvising upon it. Composers whose compositions are sung in concerts, never even dreamt that their compositions are going to be staple food for musicians today to earn their livelihood. In fact all the three members of the Trinity of Karnatic music actually lived in poverty rather than compose for a patron or sell their music. On the contrary, they freely sung and taught their music, which would not be available to us today, but for the interventions of their students who learnt, recorded and propogated their music in subsequent generations.
Hence I find it very ironic that all musicians today without exception are carrying on a profession of giving concerts by singing their compositions.
traditional compositions
Posted Tuesday, 28 April 2009 By Shubha Chaudhuri, ARCE
Nirmita, you raise issues which I too have brought up often.. today we have very interesting issues regarding artistes singing and copyrighting traditonal compositions in classical music. the fact that nothing much happens in that connection is why it has gone on. I look forward to being able to engage with these issues in the workshop.
Thanks for raising very pertinent issues..
Thanks for raising very pertinent issues..
local forms of ownership
Posted Sunday, 26 April 2009 By Andrew Dowding, ARCE Volunteer
Hi All,
I am looking forward to the workshops
I think local cultural ownership is such an interesting issue, and large institutions have an ethical obligation to pay attention to local practices and customs, if they are storing and collecting cultural property. In Australian aboriginal communities, there has been a big push to create local archives, called Indigenous knowledge centers (IKC). These are usually small databases of digitized materials, songs, dance, photos etc… held in the local library or school. This is a good way to repatriate materials, and make published materials more accessible to the communities where they were collected.
These IKC’s have helped aboriginal people develop their own cultural strategies for IP that follow local protocols of access to information. When a small local archive is developed the archivist has to negotiate directly with the community, so the policies of smaller archives can help inform those of larger institutions. They are inflected with local concerns and local behavior and it is this information that is most valuable to the larger more established archives.
In developing a working relationship with communities you can’t have a homogenous approach. Rather, policies must be tailored to the local situation. For instance, a good solution to some local IP issues in an Aboriginal communities archive, was solved when they set up separate log in accounts for clan groups, so a person is only able to view public material and content related to their clan, but cross clan content is not viewable.
When work is collected from a community, I believe it is important that the community understands their rights, but also the complexities of IP laws. At the same time there is an opportunity for archives to learn a thing or two about differing ideas of ownership.
Andrew
I am looking forward to the workshops
I think local cultural ownership is such an interesting issue, and large institutions have an ethical obligation to pay attention to local practices and customs, if they are storing and collecting cultural property. In Australian aboriginal communities, there has been a big push to create local archives, called Indigenous knowledge centers (IKC). These are usually small databases of digitized materials, songs, dance, photos etc… held in the local library or school. This is a good way to repatriate materials, and make published materials more accessible to the communities where they were collected.
These IKC’s have helped aboriginal people develop their own cultural strategies for IP that follow local protocols of access to information. When a small local archive is developed the archivist has to negotiate directly with the community, so the policies of smaller archives can help inform those of larger institutions. They are inflected with local concerns and local behavior and it is this information that is most valuable to the larger more established archives.
In developing a working relationship with communities you can’t have a homogenous approach. Rather, policies must be tailored to the local situation. For instance, a good solution to some local IP issues in an Aboriginal communities archive, was solved when they set up separate log in accounts for clan groups, so a person is only able to view public material and content related to their clan, but cross clan content is not viewable.
When work is collected from a community, I believe it is important that the community understands their rights, but also the complexities of IP laws. At the same time there is an opportunity for archives to learn a thing or two about differing ideas of ownership.
Andrew
Re: local forms of ownership
Posted Monday, 27 April 2009 By Rishika Mehrishi
Thank you Andrew for bringing up the discussion. We need to draw inspiration from the Australian aboriginal communities and their enthusiasm and concern around the issues of ownership and repatriation.
In India, over the recent years there has been a major documentation and mapping drive taken up by both governmental and non-governmental institutions. In most cases the communities as well as researcher/archivists working with them are unaware of the questions of ownership. Ironically, in my experience, this unawareness has left both the community and researchers in a state of discomfort while working with each other. A question always lingers in the minds, especially within the communities, while cooperating with recording and documentation. In spite of not being aware of themselves as ‘owners’, the members of the community have concerns about the future of what is being recorded and documented.
In the field I work in, mainly with ritual performance, it is difficult to establish who actually is the ‘owner’, for the very reason that it is difficult to determine the ‘performer’ as separate from the ‘community’ (as these performances are based on community participation). But at the same time, we desperately need to work out for ourselves along with the communities certain policies regarding ownership and intellectual property. We may not need a homogeneous approach as you pointed out, but we surely would want to work towards a standardized practice and policy, the very reason being the diversity of concerns each case study, every community throws up.
In India, over the recent years there has been a major documentation and mapping drive taken up by both governmental and non-governmental institutions. In most cases the communities as well as researcher/archivists working with them are unaware of the questions of ownership. Ironically, in my experience, this unawareness has left both the community and researchers in a state of discomfort while working with each other. A question always lingers in the minds, especially within the communities, while cooperating with recording and documentation. In spite of not being aware of themselves as ‘owners’, the members of the community have concerns about the future of what is being recorded and documented.
In the field I work in, mainly with ritual performance, it is difficult to establish who actually is the ‘owner’, for the very reason that it is difficult to determine the ‘performer’ as separate from the ‘community’ (as these performances are based on community participation). But at the same time, we desperately need to work out for ourselves along with the communities certain policies regarding ownership and intellectual property. We may not need a homogeneous approach as you pointed out, but we surely would want to work towards a standardized practice and policy, the very reason being the diversity of concerns each case study, every community throws up.
