The Copyright Thing Doesn't Work Here, 2

CCR 747 ::: S13

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Is the very idea of authorship colonialist?

(109)

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What does it mean to author cloth?

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face, economic power, and appropriation

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Lindsey: I think that her chapter “We Run a Single Country” helps inform the debate we were having in class. In this chapter she writes, “While these are important questions [what do we mean by ‘taking?’ what values and concern are implicated by the process of appropriate?] and inform the discussion in this chapter, the approach taken here varies in a number of respects…appropriation tends to be viewed as occurring when a more powerful group takes the cultural production of a less powerful group. What is often left out of the discussion is how less powerful groups come to acquire that culture in the first place. Also excluded is the consideration of the political importance of the acts of appropriation that may not be backed by laws and other instruments of the state” (118).

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4 levels to consider:tribal, local, national and global

circuits of production

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also: diasporas

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Through a combination of deliberate policy and longstanding practices of appropriation by state, groups, and individuals, therefore adinkra and kente are now generally regarded as being both Asante and Ghanaian, and Asante officials and Ghanaian state reps collaborate in the state’s custodianship of kente (though not in the state’s legal ownership via IP law.) The artificial basis of these product’s incorporation ... comes to the fore, however, in the face of questoins about formal ownership rights... (127)

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Globalization is also seen here as a multidimensional process that cannot be reduced to economic and financial conditions -- especially in the current phase that has to do with the flows and exchanges made possibly by advances in information technologies (including the ethnic, media, technological, financial, and ideological landscapes identified by Appadurai.) (119)

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multidirectional flow:European silk textiles

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The real difference between the acceptance of imitation cloth in local and diasporic markets may therefore be the kind of revenue loss entailed. In the diaspora, that revenue amounts to scarce foreign exchange, while at home, the loss is in less valuable local currency. At the same time, the Ghana government’s inclusion of key adinkra- and kente-producing communities on official tourist maps also means that cloth production in these communities is sustained by their location in tourist networks. (141)

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Jess:what this example comes down to is globalization and efficiency, where what is lost is not just connected to the status of having fabric worn in another nation, but the reality that if someone (or nation) can produce more efficiently, the creativity and cultural significance of the original product largely are pushed to the wayside. 

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Jess:

And so when we think about ownership rights and what’s at stake with appropriation, the very real material conditions of globalization leave room for pause. To say that Intellectual Property is connected to globalization and is turning into a “predominantly economic issue” is significant because we’re talking about Ghana, a nation colonized, dominated, and disadvantaged economically (150). Said another way, when Intellectual Property is connected to economics, it’s no stretch to say we are literally talking about some people’s livelihoods in a system that privileges nations already at the top of the economic hierarchy.

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Jess:

I think this gets back to what I was trying to say in class –that it seems different to be talking about my ideas or words as intellectual property and the ownership of cloth that is often a tool for survival. I have the privilege to share my ideas, and I personally have never felt as if someone taking my ideas in any way would affect neither my ability to survive nor my nation’s economic structure. So, for me, this is a difference of what’s at stake with each position.

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