WHO OWNS FOLKLORE? A Discussion Paper by Graham Seal

  • INTRODUCTION
  • THE NEED TO IDENTIFY, COLLATE AND PRESERVE FOLKLORE
  • FOLKLORE AS AN ECONOMIC RESOURCE
  • FROM PUBLIC DOMAIN TO COMMUNITY RIGHT
  • THE NEED TO CONSIDER THESE DIFFICULT ISSUES
  • BIBLIOGRAPHY

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    THE NEED TO CONSIDER THESE DIFFICULT ISSUES

    If Australia does not move to protect its folk cultural resources others will exploit them. A number of such cases have already occurred in relation to aspects of indigenous traditions and there are ample opportunities for similar exploitation of non-indigenous traditions, whether in music, song, story, verse, craft, art, customary behaviour, costumes, designs, medicines, foods, etc. Such uses have long been occurring in publishing, the media, sound recording, visual arts, the internet and in many other domains. A recent example is the commodification of the Queensland and NSW coming of age rite of passage known as 'Schoolies Week' which by 2002 was a multi-million dollar business, with the folk name 'schoolies' trademarked by the company that now runs the custom.

    Is it time to view a cultural resource in the same economic light as natural or environmental resources? If so, investigating folklore in this way would mean:

    • Identifying and locating it as a significant national cultural resource
    • Collating it in the form of an electronic inventory that will also disseminate the materials broadly
    • Developing principles for its statutory protection
    • Suggesting administrative structures for the monitoring and possible licensing of folklore
    Methodologies needing to be developed might include:
    • Registration of Australian folklore collections, forming a virtual distributed national database
    • Development of the Australian Inventory of Folklore Resources which will be both a significant and growing collation of the resources and have extensive value and applications in education, libraries, scholarship, tourism and other commercial activities.
    • Developing principles and procedures for protecting and developing folk cultural resources that can be applied nationally, including by state governments, and internationally.
    Some work in this area in relation to indigenous culture has already been done [6]

    , though there is a much broader range of expression and activity to be considered, even if only in the English language. The concerns about orally transmitted (therefore difficult to protect under intellectual property laws which revolve around print, etc) indigenous culture and its appropriation by others, also apply to non-indigenous orally transmitted materials - folklore.

    These might be along lines similar to those by which copyright and other forms of intellectual property are protected, such as the Copyright Agency Ltd. and the Copyright Act. Specifically this might involve a:

    • Definition of folklore that has both legal and ethical standing
    • the desirability of a licensing regime to govern the uses made of folklore and levy a fee or royalty from these (which could support/subsidise the statutory entity)
    • Potential legal frameworks for the protection of folk cultural resources

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