TL:DR Indigenous Art Code is a group trying to ban Aboriginal style souvenirs that aren’t made by Aborignal people.
This raises so many questions for me. It seems wrong for Aboriginal people to be made to compete with fake souvenirs, but at the same time, as a Pirate, I don’t think anyone should hold exclusive rights over a particular style or genre. I remember at primary school we were taught about Aboriginal culture, which included doing dot paintings and making a didgeridoo in art class, which was taught by a non-Aboriginal teacher.
I want to support the rights of the artists, but at the same time, if you take what Indigenous Art Code are trying to the achieve to the extreme, you will end up banning my primary school activity. (As pirates, we know enough about badly designed copyright hinders good educational goals, and this would be more of the same). Where do we draw the line? How do we balance our intellectual property policies with cultural heritage? Do our current policies deal with this interplay?
Also, I’d like to start a reading group, sharing similar articles and discussing them, but I don’t want to spam the forum with just articles I’ve shared. What should I do?
if you take what Indigenous Art Code are trying to the achieve to the extreme
Then we’ll oppose them if they do take it to the extreme.
Right now, if my reading comprehension is correct, they’re trying to prevent people selling unauthentic/unlicensed products. Making stuff for yourself, e.g. in the context of your primary school activity, would still be fair game (though they might have something to say about the rights to the designs in the lesson plans).
You’re correct though in that there is a big clash between this sort of thing and the traditional Pirate value of ‘opening up our cultural heritage’ – whose cultural heritage exactly? It’s a problem that the European Pirates haven’t really had to deal with, because they aren’t in settler-colonial countries.
Also, I’d like to start a reading group, sharing similar articles and discussing them, but I don’t want to spam the forum with just articles I’ve shared. What should I do?
Keep it in a single thread, I guess? The worst that can happen is that it becomes the most popular thread on the board.
Allocating IP-style protections on the basis of race is going to be pretty fraught. Are the government/courts actually competent to determine what is or isn’t indigenous art? Does art really benefit from that kind of policing? How indigenous do you have to be to qualify - would my flatmate, who is 1/32th indigenous and looks entirely “white”, be able to sell art? Is that really a useful way of allocating rights?
Is locking away a culture from outside influence in order to “protect” it sensible or practical? Isn’t that quite similar to what One Nation wants to do?
How much would lawyers benefit from such a law and how much would artists benefit?
What would be better is a system where artists seek approval from the appropriate communities and get the right to affix a label if it meets the community’s standard. We do this kind of thing with various other products and it works quite well. Informed consumers are smart consumers.
I think Katters approach looks agreeable. Pretty much what Mark outlined:
From the article:
Under Mr Katter’s proposed scheme, all products sold as Aboriginal craft would have to be licensed and carry a logo in a similar fashion to the already existing Australian Made logo.
“That certification would be given by a board … only on the basis that you can prove somewhere in your family tree you’ve got a First Australian,” Mr Katter said.
Aboriginal artists have long been subjected to exploitation, so I understand their desire to defend it. It might be worth issuing some sort of statement of support or at least tweeting the article (I will be working on the data retention review so wont have the time for much).