“What Protection Of Traditional Knowledge Means To Indigenous Peoples”, is an Intellectual Property Watch article, which combines two interviews with two indigenous groups attending the Intergovernmental Committee on Intellectual Property and Genetic Resources, Traditional Knowledge and Folklore (IGC).
According to the article, both indigenous groups reported that their knowledge (a part of which they consider sacred), had been published, used, and sometimes misappropriated, without their consent. These indigenous groups are demanding that their knowledge be protected through an agreement on international legal tools that prevent “colonizers” from placing their knowledge in public domain.
“When you receive it, you don’t receive it freely to do whatever you want with it, you have obligations to the land, to whatever it is referring, to the spirits or the ancestors. This is a real problem with the public domain. Tribes have often shared their knowledge in the past but they shared it with people who had similar views and concepts and understood these obligations. But now we are in this world with 7 billion people on the Internet”, says Preston Hardison, policy analyst representing the Tulalip Tribes.
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