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- Convenors:
-
Panagiotis Panopoulos
(University of the Aegean)
Aspasia Theodosiou (Epirus Institute of Technology)
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- Discussant:
-
Rajko Mursic
(University of Ljubljana)
- Format:
- Workshops
- Location:
- 535
- Sessions:
- Thursday 28 August, -, -
Time zone: Europe/Ljubljana
Short Abstract:
In recent anthropological discussions, copyright and wider issues of intellectual and cultural ownership are intricately articulated with a range of topics. This panel aims to specify the dynamics of copyright in contemporary social arrangements and to approach its appeal across disciplines.
Long Abstract:
Discussions over copyright issues have multipled in the last two decades among anthropologists. Copyright and wider issues of intellectual and cultural ownership are intricately articulated with a range of topics, from globalised economy inequalities and new reproduction technologies to world-music sampling techniques and peer-to-peer exchange of digital files through the internet. Creative practice, ideas of property, subjectivity, and the circulation of persons, services and goods have been deeply transformed under the influence of digital technology.
While the typical romantic approach of copyright as a guardian and regulator of creative practice and authorship has been criticised to its roots, recent attempts for setting up protection mechanisms outside intellectual property regimes can be equally problematic. Yet, copyright claims and counter-claims continue to be a source of recurrent conflict. Discussions in a range of fields focus on the changing organization of cultural production and engage with questions about the plurality and instability of cultural processes as value creating activities and the difficulties in controlling valorization (e.g. technologies of replication).
This panel invites papers that approach copyright's appeal across disciplinary boundaries and specify the dynamics of copyrighting in social arrangements characterized by knowledge and service intensity.
Papers might also consider: How is copyright valued in different contexts and is it made meaningful in local settings and histories? How is copyright used as a device of agency? How are creative practices influenced by changing ideas about ownership? What is the role of technology in enabling entitlement and in transforming relationships among persons, things and practices?
Accepted papers:
Session 1 Thursday 28 August, 2008, -Paper short abstract:
Taking further the claim that DVD piracy is a simulation of middle-classness, I draw on theories of performativity to analyze the consumption fake DVDs in the Philippines.
Paper long abstract:
Amidst the staggering poverty, mass-market consumption reeks everywhere in the Philippines. Malls loom large in urban landscapes and modernizing provincial areas. And then there are alternative sites of counterfeit commerce in street corners, rundown buildings, and overpasses, where fashion, food, music and electronics are sold at cheaper prices and with supposedly lesser quality compared to those in malls and licensed shops.
The globalizing commercial landscape is no less a testimony to Filipinos' penchant for buying. This paper takes special interest on an alternative form of consumption. Despite the government's crackdown on piracy, Filipinos continue to patronize bootlegged goods. Among these are DVDs. How can the popularity of such low quality—and least of all prohibited—form of entertainment be explained?
Noted Filipino scholar Roland Tolentino interprets DVD piracy consumption as the simulation of middle-classness. Most Filipinos desire to have the "fineries" of the good life, but only a few have gainful access. Pirated goods are representations of the desired middle-class life, but they are "as real as the real itself."
Taking Tolentino's claim further, this paper considers the consumption of fake DVDs as performance. I draw on theories of performativity to analyze the consumption of pirated DVDs in the Philippines.
Paper short abstract:
The current esthetic evolution of a certain type of Portuguese handmade embroideries helps shed light on what can happen when a collective heritage is objectified and commodified, and that its ownership drifts to private forms.
Paper long abstract:
Participation in a research project about the "certification" of a specific type of handmade embroideries of rural northern Portugal has led to scrutinize the current dynamics of this craft production. Its traditional patterns are now appropriated, interpreted, and sometimes copyrighted by multinational companies and applied to various industrial products. Several Portuguese designers have also started using them in innovative ways. As for embroiderers (nowadays almost exclusively women), they start to look for ways to "protect" what they feel is "theirs". They publicize their work on the internet, in an attempt to strengthen their claims of authority about "genuine" features. But they are also dismayed by the fact that this global diffusion greatly increases the risk of plagiarism. A few of them now talk about copyrighting their patterns. And pieces which used to be anonymous are now signed while, paradoxically, the search for productivity which is inherent to a commercial activity leads to a sharp decrease in creativity and innovation. The question is therefore not only "Who owns native culture?" but also what can happen when a collective heritage is objectified and commodified, and that its ownership, or at least its control, drifts to private forms.
Paper short abstract:
This paper examines the implications of digital technology in the production of multiple meanings of the concept of "intellectual ownership" within the context of creative music processes on a cross-cultural level.
Paper long abstract:
The practices of musical "borrowing" and "appropriation" in hybrid musical projects (world-music, avant-garde etc.) through sampling techniques have been critically discussed in recent ethnomusicological literature with regard to issues of intellectual ownership, cultural representation and copyright.
This paper focuses on musicians' discourse, which centred on the concepts of "creativity" and "innovation" defend the above practices, challenging the issue of inequality in cultural representation, as well as the copyright regime that operates in mainstream music industry. The aim of this presentation is to examine the implications of digital technology in the production of multiple meanings of the concept of "intellectual ownership" within the context of creative music processes on a cross-cultural level.
Paper short abstract:
The paper considers a series of CD productions of Gypsy/Roma music in the Balkans and explores the complex inter-connections between identity politics, aesthetics, and claims to the ownership of resources, such as music.
Paper long abstract:
The aim of this paper is to critically reassess the 19th c debate between Liszt and Bartok over the value of gypsy music in the light of the significant presence of gypsy music in today's music industry. More specifically, the paper considers a series of CD productions of Gypsy/Roma music in the Balkans and explores the complex inter-connections between identity politics, aesthetics, and claims to the ownership of resources, such as music. On yet another level in trying to shed some light at the discursive realm of "Gypsy/Roma musical work" concept the paper employs two distinct but overlapping tropes: the "identity based" and the "aesthetic" one. The latter facilitates a certain kind of musical appreciation and certain kinds of listening practice by highlighting expressive form; the first facilitates the drawing of proprietary, identity-based, boundaries around complex music practices. Yet, in providing the public with a "new" musical object that will figure in commercial transactions and be the focus of specific "aesthetic" and "identity" expectations, both tropes fix the identity of the Roma/Gypsies around specific signifiers, while underplaying the significance of others.