Lipszyc, Delia; Villalba, Carlos Alberto --- "Preserving and Accessing our Cultural Heritage: Argentina’s Experience through the Domaine Public Payant" [2010] ELECD 792; in Derclaye, Estelle (ed), "Copyright and Cultural Heritage" (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2010)

Book Title: Copyright and Cultural Heritage

Editor(s): Derclaye, Estelle

Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing

ISBN (hard cover): 9781849800044

Section: Chapter 8

Section Title: Preserving and Accessing our Cultural Heritage: Argentina’s Experience through the Domaine Public Payant

Author(s): Lipszyc, Delia; Villalba, Carlos Alberto

Number of pages: 14

Extract:

8. Preserving and accessing our
cultural heritage: Argentina's
experience through the domaine
public payant
Delia Lipszyc and Carlos Alberto Villalba*1

1. INTRODUCTION

In Argentina, folklore involves both the expressions of traditional and
popular culture and the works based on these expressions. But, the latter ­
as works ­ are protected by copyright, while the former, as in many other
countries, are considered to be part of the public domain.
The concept of `author' is characteristic of a cultural ambience in which
each person is a clearly differentiated being who is conscious of their indi-
viduality. The great works that depict the history of a people, a nation or
a religion, generally arose from oral expression and were transmitted and
re-created from one generation to the next. They were sometimes attributed
to somebody ­ like the Iliad and the Odyssey were ascribed to Homer ­ or
dictated by a divine being that used somebody as a means of conveying a
message, which would lose value as such if it originated from a person or
a specific group of persons because it would not be the word of God. This
would allow for a compilation as Ramón Menendez y Pidal did in Flor nueva
de romances viejos, or what the Argentinean musicologist Leda Valladares
accomplished on the subject of popular music from diverse cultural com-
munities in Argentina in Cantando las raíces. Coplas ancestrales del Noroeste
Argentino or the Hemanos Ábalos ­ a widely known Argentinean musical
group ­ who combined lots of ...