Burri-Nenova, Mira --- "The Long Tail of the Rainbow Serpent: New Technologies and the Protection and Promotion of Traditional Cultural Expressions" [2008] ELECD 330; 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 9

Section Title: The Long Tail of the Rainbow Serpent: New Technologies and the Protection and Promotion of Traditional Cultural Expressions

Author(s): Burri-Nenova, Mira

Number of pages: 32

Extract:

9. The long tail of the rainbow serpent:
new technologies and the protection
and promotion of traditional cultural
expressions
Mira Burri-Nenova*
Technologies have often been seen as a peril for traditional cultural expres-
sions (TCE) and as an inhibitor of their protection. The first reason for this
angst, whose legitimacy will be one of the issues discussed in this paper, is that
new technologies are viewed as the very epitome of globalisation forces ­ both
as driving and deepening the process of globalisation itself and as a means of
spreading its effects. Frequently made statements in this regard (and widely
supported ones too) are that, "[t]he distinct and diverse qualities of the world's
multiple cultural communities are threatened in the face of uniformity brought
on by new technologies and the globalization of culture and commerce".1
"Increasingly, traditional knowledge, folklore, genetic material and native
medical knowledge flow out of their countries unprotected by intellectual
property, while works from developed countries flow in, well protected by
international intellectual property agreements, backed by the threat of trade
sanctions".2


* The author thanks Christoph Beat Graber for inspiring the title of this contri-
bution. The rainbow serpent is a major mythological being for Aboriginal people across
Australia, although the creation stories associated with it are best known from northern
Australia. The rainbow serpent is seen as the inhabitant of permanent waterholes and
is in control of life's most precious resource, water. It is known both as a benevolent
protector of ...