Rethinking Intangible Cultural Heritage and Expressions of Folklore: A Lesson from the FCC’s Localism Standards

摘要

This article reviews the underlying societal imperatives reflected in a policy of intangible cultural heritage and the intellectual property-like regimes being developed to protect these interests. It contrasts UNESCO efforts with more narrowly tailored efforts of WIPO and juxtaposes those approaches with the localism model developed under the FCC. While aspects of the WIPO protection efforts focusing on trademark-like and trade secret-like protections benefit the people and cultures these policies hope to serve, additional copyright-like protections will likely do more harm than good. Instead, global public policy will be far better served through emphasis on the FCCu27s localism attributes of developing human capital to improve the quality of content being produced and encouraging local communities to focus on the content of their own choosing.