Stepping outside the box: Traditional knowledge, folklore, indigenous textiles and cultural appropriation---Is there room for folklore protection under intellectual property law?
Bibliographic record
Abstract
The protection of folklore is contentious. This stems from differing perceptions of the meaning and value of folklore to different countries and ethnic groups. Folklore is unique because it is viewed not only as part of a community's culture but also as a commodity. By focusing on traditional textiles as a branch of folklore, this dissertation examines the importance of traditional textiles, the practice of culture appropriation and the right legal mechanism for the protection of traditional textiles. Specifically, this dissertation argues that not all works of folklore are a part of the public domain and that adopting a contrary view may contribute to the appropriation of traditional designs. Further, it might erode the value of the respective culture and may even result in the complete loss of culture. It argues further that the West should not be too ready to dismiss the importance of folklore to indigenous communities. Rather, cultural diversity should be acknowledged and respected. This thesis also argues that the philosophies justifying intellectual property protection do not necessarily exclude the protection of traditional textile designs. Rather, the tension in 'fitting' traditional textiles protection under the intellectual property umbrella arises from the manner in which intellectual property has been traditionally drafted under international law and national legislation. It challenges the view that protecting folklore will obstruct progress in the arts and stifle creativity. In conclusion, this thesis recommends a consideration of sui generis options for traditional textiles protection. It also proposes that there should be international cooperation to strengthen folklore protection. Last, it recommends that it is time for the perception of traditional designs as part of the public domain to be corrected.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.003 | 0.003 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.002 | 0.002 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.006 | 0.049 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.014 | 0.016 |
| Open science | 0.001 | 0.006 |
| Research integrity | 0.003 | 0.003 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.004 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".