[Nettime-bold] Re: <nettime> Intellectual Property Regimes and Indigenous Sovereignty

[Dan Steinberg <synthesis@videotron.ca>]

Ned, Kermit,

you know...it suddenly got warmer in here....

Is this what they used to call 'heated' debate in academic circles?   Methinks
even wittgenstein was cooler sometimes.....

Ned Rossiter wrote:

> oh gosh Kermit, you've outed me as a neoliberal, a racist, a nazi who
> adovocates an elite culture that seeks to restrict access to what you see
> as humanity's so-called "common cultural heritage" .  Gotta say, that last
> part sounds like a typical line from some wacko proto-nationalist tract if
> ever.  Or something old humanists blurt out, mantra like, never quite
> getting the hypocritical ring it has with nationalism, or any other
> movement that seeks to reduce difference to the same.  Common-cultural
> heritage??!! Bullshit!!  Whose got it?!  We're talking about radically
> different cultural systems here that, try as any good assimilationist
> might, simply will not fit into the white container.  This said, the
> signifiers of this difference can be acknowledged within the realm of IP
> law to the benefit of indigeneous peoples rather than add more lining to
> the fluffy crevices of corporations and individuals who seek to rip off
> indigenous cultural knowledge and heritage.
>
> I'm pleased you looked into indigenous IP issues a bit more.  Certainly IP
> covers more than the manufacture of boomerangs and didgeridoos - a nicely
> ignorant, if not racist, reduction of yours to be sure.  As my paper
> points out, it also includes 'cultural heritage and its mediatisation,
> ecological and biological knowledge'.  This was part of the sentence that
> appeared just before the first quote you lift from my paper - you seemto
> have missed it, even after 2 reads.  The diversity of indigenous IP could
> - and should - be elaborated further with case studies.  That would be a
> longer paper though, and to be honest, would involve more research that I
> have currently done.
>
> I perhaps could have stated more forcefully that I am not advocating that
> indigenous people give up on the pursuit of human rights issues within an
> international frame.  That would be foolish.  Rather, I'm suggesting that
> a 2-pronged approach be taken: maintain pressure within the realm of
> international human rights law, and also pursue IP rights.  Personally, I
> think the Aboriginal polity will hold more success in pursuit of the
> later.  It's naive to assume that just because international courts of law
> exist to deal with human rights abuse that they are then effective.  As my
> paper states repeatedly (which of course does not make it fact, though I
> think the evidence is there), the supranational legitimation of human
> rights violations has, for the most part, failed to articulate with the
> national form, in the case of Australia.  I am reading this as
> representative of a failure of rational consensus models of democracy.
> My reading of rational consensus democracy is informed by Mouffe here.
>
> The open source movement is, I think , in need of the sort of critique I
> begin to table.  In particular, it should not, in my opinion, be assumed
> to hold universal application.  As nice as it sounds, not all culture
> should be open. Nor is it.  In times of crisis, some culture needs to be
> protected.  And culture is not open, irrespective of open source
> principles, precisely because individuals and communities hold varying,
> and often inalienable degrees of cultural capital.  I have argued, perhaps
> not as clearly as I might have, that IP rights hold the potential for
> indigenous people to bring claims for self-determination to the table
> within the national form. Open source movements, as far as I can tell, are
> predominantly against IP.  (More subtle obervers like Lessig recognise
> that IP is here to stay, has been around for a long time, is intrinsic to
> capitalism, and the battle against overly restrictive IP law is best
> fought by seeking to have a balance between public access and economic
> interests.)
>
> As my paper states - to my knowledge, I have never heard open source
> advocates address the problematic of cultural capital.  To be really crude
> and reductive (ie, kinda stupid): open source movements assume all white
> boys have fast computers, modem/network access, and the cultural knowledge
> and desire to participate in network, informational societies.
>
> If you can giv e me a lesson on why open source movements have universal
> application, I'd be more than keen to hear it.
>
> Now, regarding Schmitt.  Sure, it was always going to be a dodgy move to
> haul out a quote from Schmitt without contextualisation. (A blunder that
> typifies much academic work these days, for a host of cultural,
> institutional and political economic reasons.) I'm using Schmitt in the
> spirit of Mouffe and others who see him as an adversary to think with, to
> rub ideas against and see what happens.  Maybe this is dangerous, but I
> think there is a form of fascism that goes by the name closing one's
> eyes/mouth to all things horrible.  Heidegger is another obvious case in
> point: we should never ever invoke his name or ideas because of his
> flirtation with national socialism. So the thought police say.  Well, I'd
> suggest there can be useful and productive things that emerge from
> encounters with those who've had a date with the limits of thought and
> practice.
>
> regards
> Ned
>
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--
Dan Steinberg

SYNTHESIS:Law & Technology
35, du Ravin  phone: (613) 794-5356
Chelsea, Quebec  fax:   (819) 827-4398
J9B 1N1                 e-mail:synthesis@videotron.ca


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