Discussing ‘fair use’ of archived recordings of minority music from the mountains of southwestern China
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This paper describes and analyses public discussions within Kam (in Chinese, Dong ?) minority communities in rural southwestern China concerning potential wider online access to one major, recently established archive of Kam song and other cultural recordings. The future of much ...
See moreThis paper describes and analyses public discussions within Kam (in Chinese, Dong ?) minority communities in rural southwestern China concerning potential wider online access to one major, recently established archive of Kam song and other cultural recordings. The future of much of the music-making featured in these recordings is uncertain, and this is one reason why the creation of this sustainable digital archive (with PARADISEC) has been enthusiastically supported within Kam communities. However, many issues are currently influencing Kam debate over wider access to this important collection. Using quotations from Kam people's public discussions concerning potential 'fair use' access to this collection (with most discussions also documented on video during 2011 and to be uploaded into the same Kam archive under discussion), this paper summarises and explores Kam people's varying understandings of and views towards the proposed 'fair use' access agreement. As such, it also offers a valuable first-hand insight into custodians' own responses to archival policy and practice. Kam peoples' discussions are framed within the broader analysis I (first author, [name removed]) present of the current cultural, political, and socio-economic dynamics influential regarding both Kam minority communities in particular and recordings of traditional musics from the Asia-Pacific region in general (especially the high-profile court cases involving world-popular bands Deep Forest (Zemp 1996) and Enigma (Guy 2002, Tan forthcoming)). The paper concludes by examining points of convergence and divergence between Kam attitudes and Western archival requirements, and makes initial attempts to suggest how these might be accommodated within agreements permitting some access to the archive beyond that of the depositor (first author, [name removed]) and members of Kam communities themselves.References cited:Guy, Nancy. 2002. 'Trafficking in Taiwan Aboriginal voices.' In Sjoerd R. Jaarsma (ed.) Handle with care: Ownership and control of ethnographic materials. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 195-209.Tan, Shzr Ee. forthcoming. Beyond 'Innocence': An ecosystem of Aboriginal song in Taiwan. Farnham, UK &Burlington, VT: Ashgate.Zemp, Hugo. 1996. 'The/an Ethnomusicologist and the record business.' Yearbook for traditional music 28: 36-55.
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See moreThis paper describes and analyses public discussions within Kam (in Chinese, Dong ?) minority communities in rural southwestern China concerning potential wider online access to one major, recently established archive of Kam song and other cultural recordings. The future of much of the music-making featured in these recordings is uncertain, and this is one reason why the creation of this sustainable digital archive (with PARADISEC) has been enthusiastically supported within Kam communities. However, many issues are currently influencing Kam debate over wider access to this important collection. Using quotations from Kam people's public discussions concerning potential 'fair use' access to this collection (with most discussions also documented on video during 2011 and to be uploaded into the same Kam archive under discussion), this paper summarises and explores Kam people's varying understandings of and views towards the proposed 'fair use' access agreement. As such, it also offers a valuable first-hand insight into custodians' own responses to archival policy and practice. Kam peoples' discussions are framed within the broader analysis I (first author, [name removed]) present of the current cultural, political, and socio-economic dynamics influential regarding both Kam minority communities in particular and recordings of traditional musics from the Asia-Pacific region in general (especially the high-profile court cases involving world-popular bands Deep Forest (Zemp 1996) and Enigma (Guy 2002, Tan forthcoming)). The paper concludes by examining points of convergence and divergence between Kam attitudes and Western archival requirements, and makes initial attempts to suggest how these might be accommodated within agreements permitting some access to the archive beyond that of the depositor (first author, [name removed]) and members of Kam communities themselves.References cited:Guy, Nancy. 2002. 'Trafficking in Taiwan Aboriginal voices.' In Sjoerd R. Jaarsma (ed.) Handle with care: Ownership and control of ethnographic materials. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 195-209.Tan, Shzr Ee. forthcoming. Beyond 'Innocence': An ecosystem of Aboriginal song in Taiwan. Farnham, UK &Burlington, VT: Ashgate.Zemp, Hugo. 1996. 'The/an Ethnomusicologist and the record business.' Yearbook for traditional music 28: 36-55.
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Date
2011-12-01Source title
Sustainable data from digital research: Humanities perspectives on digital scholarship.Publisher
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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.Citation
Sustainable data from digital research: Humanities perspectives on digital scholarship. Proceedings of the conference held at the University of Melbourne, 12-14th December 2011Share
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