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October 26, 2021

Comment: Does Open Licensing Facilitate The Promotion Of IP In Cultural Heritage?

Author: Intern - Varsha Divakar

Culture plays an important role in the development of a country and a country as diverse as India is symbolized by the plurality of its culture. It has to be ensured that the cultural works are adequately protected and that there exist no overlapping boundaries between not for-profit, educational, and commercial exploitation and distribution of such work. The author believes that open licensing would adequately ensure the promotion of Intellectual Property (IP) in cultural heritage and enable the effective usage of the said cultural work in question and at the same time, ensure adequate protection to the creator of the said work.

Open Licensing empowers new creativity, increases educational opportunities, preserves space for non-commercial culture and promotes inclusion and access to cultural works. This, it does by ensuring that the creators are duly credited for their work; commissioning of the said work as well as ensuring that such works are protected from being destructed and by preventing the cultural expressions from being exhibited in ways that disparage the community.

Further, open licensing ensures that the right to livelihood of such creators is adequately protected, in the sense that they receive economic benefits for the work they produce. To this end, the Indian Government, under the aegis of Ministry of Culture has introduced various schemes, such as the “Scheme of Financial Assistance for Promotion of Art and Culture”, among others [1]. The schemes aim at supporting and strengthening the efforts of various stakeholders vis-à-vis, wider recognition and acceptance, dissemination, preservation and promotion of the rich, diverse and vast Intangible Cultural Heritage (ICH) of India, including its recognition by the UNESCO. In this regard, open licensing enhances financial rewards to the creators.

Moreover, these schemes aim at preserving, supporting and safeguarding the various expressions of ICH by providing training support to the students and artists in these areas, providing support to practitioners through workshops, performance documentation and database creation through various media. To this end, the schemes aim at addressing areas critical for the survival and propagation of various ICH forms.

In the absence of open licensing, it would be easier for large corporations to exploit the creator of such rights without adequately incentivizing them. The author, thus, believes that these incentives along with the current copyright regime facilitates the promotion of IP in cultural heritage. Open licensing treats cultural production as a public endeavour for the benefit of all and the same has to be positively encouraged.

[1] Ministry of Culture, Schemes, available at https://www.indiaculture.nic.in/schemes .

Disclaimer: Views, opinions, interpretations are solely those of the author, not of the firm (ALG India Law Offices LLP) nor reflective thereof. Author submissions are not checked for plagiarism or any other aspect before being posted.

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