An interesting blog entry on copyright and a new technology using chemical forumlas to identify originals:
A few years ago I was invited to attend a launch at the Australia Council of the then new Indigenous Protocols booklets for media arts, music, performing arts, visual arts and writing. These publications were devised “to help Australians better understand the use of Indigenous cultural material”. Australia had a shocking record of misappropriating Aboriginal artwork and commercially corrupting it without any payment or indeed acknowledgement to the original creator. These booklets, which were written by Anita Heiss and Terry Janke, went part of the way to offering a solution by providing nine principles that dictate how we need to approach Indigenous artists across all art forms with full transparency, with professionalism, and with courtesy and respect (and I would add “ humility!!!) for Indigenous culture and traditions. These nine principles include “secrecy and confidentiality, communication, consultation and consent, and attribution and copyright.
