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Wendland, Wend B. --- "‘It’s a Small World (After All)’: Some Reflections on Intellectual Property and Traditional Cultural Expressions" [2008] ELECD 328; in Graber, Beat Christoph; Burri-Nenova, Mira (eds), "Intellectual Property and Traditional Cultural Expressions in a Digital Environment" (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2008)

Book Title: Intellectual Property and Traditional Cultural Expressions in a Digital Environment

Editor(s): Graber, Beat Christoph; Burri-Nenova, Mira

Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing

ISBN (hard cover): 9781847209214

Section: Chapter 7

Section Title: ‘It’s a Small World (After All)’: Some Reflections on Intellectual Property and Traditional Cultural Expressions

Author(s): Wendland, Wend B.

Number of pages: 32

Extract:

7. "It's a small world (after all)": some
reflections on intellectual property and
traditional cultural expressions
Wend B. Wendland*

I. INTRODUCTION
Exploring the intellectual property (IP) protection of traditional cultural
expressions (TCE) and the cognate subject matter of "traditional knowledge"
(TK)1 has been described as "like trying to fit a round peg into a square hole".2
There are certainly deep-running divergences between the worldviews
underpinning the conventional IP system and the customary legal systems,
ways of life and traditional practices of indigenous and local communities.
From an indigenous perspective, a song or story is not a commodity or a form
of property but "one of the manifestations of an ancient and continuing rela-
tionship between people and their territory".3 As a result of the unique nature


* This article was written in the author's personal capacity and any views
expressed in the article are those of the author, and not necessarily those of the WIPO
Secretariat or any of WIPO's Member States.
1 In intellectual property discussions a distinction is usually drawn between the
content or substance of traditional knowledge per se (traditional knowledge stricto
sensu, "TK") and the tangible and intangible forms in which such knowledge is
expressed, communicated or manifested (traditional cultural expressions, or "expres-
sions of folklore", "TCE"). This distinction is criticized as artificial, as it certainly is in
relation to the daily life of indigenous peoples in which technical know-how and artis-
tic expressions form part of an integrated ...