Bali - The Justice and Human Rights Ministry is drafting a traditional knowledge and cultural expression bill in a bid to protect local cultural heritage from foreign exploitation, a high-ranking ministry official said Tuesday.
The bill is expected to be presented to the House of Representatives for deliberation next year for prompt enactment, Anshori Sinungan, the ministry`s director general for intellectual property rights, said.
One of the main points in the draft, he said, concerned communal property rights, requiring foreign nationals to seek permission from the relevant local authority before using traditional culture.
"If the culture is owned by some regions, then the permit will be issued at the authority of the provincial government," he told The Jakarta Post here Tuesday.
Anshori was in Denpasar for a two-day international conference on intellectual property and creative industries, organized by the United Nation`s World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO). The conference ended Wednesday.
He said a decisive approach to such protection at the international level was not possible because many developed countries were worried it would harm their business interests.
"Our country can make its own law first while waiting for the dispute to be settled," Anshori said during his speech at the conference.
Another speaker, Indonesian fashion designer and batik maker Yosephine Komara, said she supported the idea of protecting indigenous designs but stressed the importance of defining and raising public awareness of shared knowledge and cultural heritage.
"Traditional designs, such as the basic technique of batik hand-waxing and stamping, for example, has long existed and no one can claim any intellectual property right to it. It should be classified as shared knowledge," she said.
She objected to the idea of one country claiming ownership over another country`s traditional designs, saying the government needed to make inventories of the intellectual property of traditional knowledge at all levels, including the individual, city and province levels.
Sapta Nirwandar, director general of marketing at the Culture and Tourism Ministry, said the country was striving for WIPO`s recognition of indigenous property rights and was less interested in the issue of royalties.
"We want recognition for our heritage and we should also recognize other countries`. It`s just impossible to get royalties from communal works," he said.
Indonesia, a home for hundreds of kinds of traditional culture in the creative industries, is also home to widespread piracy crimes, which are believed to be the biggest obstacle to the industry`s growth. -- Indah Setiawati
Source:
http://www.thejakartapost.com (December 5, 2008)