Burkert, Herbert --- "New Information and Communication Technologies, Traditional Cultural Expressions and Intellectual Property Lawmaking – A Polemic Comment" [2008] ELECD 331; 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 10

Section Title: New Information and Communication Technologies, Traditional Cultural Expressions and Intellectual Property Lawmaking – A Polemic Comment

Author(s): Burkert, Herbert

Number of pages: 19

Extract:

10. New information and communication
technologies, traditional cultural
expressions and intellectual property
lawmaking ­ a polemic comment
Herbert Burkert

1. INTRODUCTION: ABOUT CONCEPTS
This comment is about concepts: How does law perceive the challenges of infor-
mation and communication technologies, how does this relate to the way in
which traditional cultural expressions (TCE) are perceived and the way in which
information and communication technologies are seen to be useful for these
expressions? The characteristics of information and communication technolo-
gies as such and their role in the (present and future) protection and promotion
of TCE are exhaustively covered in the contribution by Mira Burri-Nenova to
this volume.1 This justifies a concentration on such conceptual issues.
It will be argued that there is a predominant pattern in law's responses to
information and communication technology which, in the case of lawmaking
for TCE in an information and communication technologies environment,
meets with what will be called "International Bad Conscience Lawmaking",
leading to a series of misled approaches, such as an obsessive repetitive disor-
der in lawmaking (to be exemplified by recent efforts of the World Intellectual
Property Organization, WIPO) and ­ in an attempt to deny such a bad
conscience ­ to a display of narcissistic behavior (exemplified by the recent
Convention on the Protection and Promotion of the Diversity of Cultural
Expressions2 of the United Nations Educational, Social and Cultural

1 In the mentioned contribution, the technologies dwelt upon are referred to as
"digital technologies" and associated above all with digitisation ...