From Safeguarding to Global Circulation: Intellectual Property, Digital Transformation, and the Cross-Border Reconfiguration of Chinese Intangible Cultural Heritage

This research scrutinizes the trends and dynamics of Intellectual Property Protection (IPP) of Intangible Cultural Heritage (ICH) in China, utilizing a dataset of 91 papers from the CNKI database spanning 2011 to 2020. The study uses CiteSpace software to visualise and analyse the literature across multiple dimensions, including article count, authorship, institutional affiliations, and keyword co-occurrence. Findings indicate a lack of robust collaboration among authors and institutions in IPP and ICH, with a scarcity of active cooperative groups. Critical research hotspots identified encompass intangible cultural heritage, intellectual property protection, inheritors, legal protection, copyright, intellectual property law, and geographical indications, with the legal safeguarding of ICH’s intellectual property, digital conservation, traditional cultural expressions, and original authentication emerging as the leading research frontiers. This investigation provides a holistic view of China’s IPP and ICH landscape, offering essential scientific insights for ongoing scholarly discourse. This study mainly benefits policymakers and stakeholders in the cultural heritage sector, underscoring the necessity of enhanced authorial and institutional collaboration and the prioritization of legal and digital protection mechanisms to safeguard China’s intangible cultural legacy for posterity. The analysis is critical, informing policy formulation and strategic planning to bolster ICH’s protection and sustainable management in China.

This chapter focuses on the legal protection of intangible cultural heritage in Korean law, discussing whether the legal framework adequately protects such heritage. Defined as ‘the part of culture that cannot be touched … such as annual festivals, skills, song, dance, and cuisine’, intangible cultural heritage is protected by a specific piece of legislation, the Korean Intangible Cultural Heritage Act and general legislation protecting intellectual property. The former aims ‘to maintain the archetype of intangible cultural heritage, giving due consideration to the following: cultivation of the national identity; transmission and development of traditional culture; and realisation and enhancement of the value of intangible cultural heritage’. In this context, the transmission of the archetype of intangible cultural heritage is one of the pivotal factors for the Korean government to approve cultural heritage as intangible cultural heritage. This is because the term archetype refers to intrinsic features constituting the value of specific intangible cultural heritage. Whether or not intangible cultural heritage maintains and transmits its archetype depends upon whether its intrinsic features constituting the value of specific intangible cultural heritage are identical over several generations. However, to the extent to which intangible cultural heritage also constitutes the creation or creative activity of its holder(s), it can also be afforded intellectual property protection. In this context, this chapter discusses whether and to what extent intangible cultural heritage law and intellectual property laws converge or diverge in protecting intangible cultural heritage.

With the development of globalization, intangible cultural heritage (ICH) has come under increasing threat, making the safeguarding of ICH a crucial task for the governments and peoples of the world. This paper examines China’s current state of intellectual property (IPR) protection for ICH and proposes that ICH be placed under China’s legislative protection as intellectual property. Due to the immense diversity and complexity of ICH and the difficulty in reconciling various interests involved, the existing IPR protection mode faces many obstacles in practice. We present two case studies and three sets of recommendations on improving the protection of ICH in China. The first set relies on improving copyright protection for ICH, the second set relies on improving trademark and geographical protection for ICH, and the third set relies on improving patent protection for ICH.

To safeguard intangible cultural heritage across borders, there is a need to adopt intellectual property rights, which are suitable to protect, from potential misappropriation, communal rights. Intellectual property rights are territorial and thus, need to be registered in each country one would like to protect. However, in cases of transnational disputes on intellectual property rights, the Brussels system applies an exclusive jurisdiction rule, which implies multiple parallel proceedings. This may raise the risk of conflicting judgments, considerable litigation costs, and inequalities between parties, in particular when intellectual property owners are intangible cultural heritage bearers. Yet, distinct from transnational disputes concerning intellectual property rights, those regarding geographical indications do not fall into the exclusive jurisdiction rule of the Brussels system. Unlike Regulation (EU) No 1151/2012 that regulates quality schemes for agricultural products and foodstuffs for geographical indications, Regulation (EU) No 2017/1001, which regulates EU trade marks, does establish a system of cross-border enforcement. Under this Regulation, EU trade marks do not fall within the scope of the Brussels System and consequently the exclusive jurisdiction rule does not apply to them. Thus, the systems regulating EU geographical indications and EU trade marks allow for the consolidation of litigation before a single competent court. This consolidation would be in line with recent international academic proposals, among which is that of the International Law Association Committee on Intellectual Property and Private International Law. Such consolidation of international intellectual property rights litigation provides one solution to the limitations of trade marks and geographical indications for safeguarding intangible cultural heritage in transnational misappropriation cases. Another proposition is the use of intellectual property rights as part of a ‘broad positive strategy’ for safeguarding intangible cultural heritage. This positive strategy encompasses the use of intellectual property rights alongside other legal and marketing safeguarding tools, with the aim of enhancing the reputation of and encouraging respect for the heritage in question. In turn, this may create a virtuous circle, with the enhanced reputation of and respect for the intangible cultural heritage resulting in non-community members and the public being more aware of the intangible cultural heritage, leading to fewer misappropriations and therefore resulting in greater transnational safeguarding for the heritage in question.

This article reviews the different factors which generated international standard setting for the safeguarding of intangible cultural heritage, examines the conceptual evolution of this notion, and traces the various steps of negotiations leading to the adoption of the Convention in 2003. The establishment of the first normative instrument was the Recommendation on the Safeguarding of Traditional Culture and Folklore (1989). Much attention had been given to the question of Intellectual Property Rights, which at the end was left aside for a more global approach. In 1997, the World Forum on the Protection of Folklore, organized by UNESCO and WIPO (the World Intellectual Property Organization), concluded that the copyright regime was not adequate for ensuring protection, but that a new international agreement was needed. The 1992 UNESCO 'Intangible Cultural Heritage' programme consolidated by the UNESCO/Japan Fund-in-Trust, the creation of a world list of Living Human Treasures in 1993, the 1992 United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity, and the subsequent setting-up of the United Nations decade for indigenous and minority people (1995-2004) generated a number of significant events in favour of the safeguarding of intangible heritage and made urgent the need for a new normative instrument. The Proclamation of Masterpieces of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity was conceived in 1997 as a means to fill the gap in the concept of 'world heritage', which refers mainly to the 'Northern' natural and tangible cultural heritage. The Assessment of the 1989 Recommendation played a catalytic role for the successful adoption of the 2003 Convention, in which a more holistic conception of 'heritage' prevailed, with a predominant role given to artists, practitioners and communities deserving of respect and motivation. This Convention marks a fundamental ethical positioning.

Knowledge graph based on domain ontology and natural language processing technology for Chinese intangible cultural heritage

Intangible cultural heritage (ICH) is an invaluable treasure for human being and China is a country endowed with rich ICH. Among all the measures of safeguarding ICH, intellectual property (IP) tools are effective while controversial. As China started relatively late in the legal protection of ICH, the gap between legislation and judiciary needs to be filled in. This study examines the IP protection of ICH in China based on the current laws and regulations and then provides a semiotic approach to the relevant legal evolution in China. This study, taking in some experiences outside China, goes further to provide recommendations for improving the IP protection in China.

This study delves into the representation of intangible Chinese cultural heritage in Chinese mobile games. Nowadays, even with huge economic potential, Chinese mobile games are still faced with negative comments, especially from parents. To develop their reputation, Chinese mobile games have portrayed considerate Chinese intangible cultural heritage (ICH). The representation of cultural heritage in video games has been a subject of discussion for a long time, while console and computer games and tangible cultural heritage have been at the centre of academic studies. Hence, we strived to investigate how Chinese ICH is depicted in Chinese mobile games. A thematic analysis was conducted on data collected through analytical gameplay of 30 Chinese mobile games selected from Apple’s App Store and the Chinese TapTap platform. Our analysis indicates that Chinese ICH is represented in Chinese mobile games to fulfil the persona of game characters, to create a more engaging and immersive game world experience, to provide more intense combat moments, to offer visually enjoyable virtual goods, and to deliver culturally driven updates during traditional festivals. Among the various forms of Chinese ICH, Chinese traditional craftsmanship is found to be used most frequently because of the huge effort it requires to be mastered, which could be educational to players. Theatrical traditions were found to be depicted in most game elements because they combine visual, audio, and motional elements. Lastly, folk and classical literature is portrayed in Chinese mobile games to provide a narrative resource that culturally resonates with players.

The term “Cultural Heritage” is a term which comprises so much more than monuments or physical collections –tangible cultural heritage-, asit also includes our ancestors’ cultural practices which are to be transmitted to future generations –intangible cultural heritage-. That’s why, intangible cultural heritage, is an essential piece in maintaining cultural diversity in the face of growing globalization. In fact, is in the area of neoliberalism, that intellectual property rights seek to appropriate this intangible heritage. The purpose of this article is to give them an adequate treatment as commons goods and anadequate regulation.

Research of Chinese intangible cultural heritage knowledge graph construction and attribute value extraction with graph attention network

This article focuses on the interaction between intangible heritage (ICH) and intellectual property (IP) as human rights in the context of cultural heritage protection. Rights constitute a core of any regulatory model; ICH and IP are each defined as human rights in numerous human rights conventions. Here, we explore how to integrate ICH into national legal orders and use IP to support the objectives of ICH protection. Our analysis relies on two case studies of the protection of intangible heritage in Estonia: the Lahemaa Memoryscapes project, which highlights collective and individual IP rights in the context of folklore, and traditional wooden boatbuilding in Estonia, which involves traditional knowledge, copyright, and industrial property rights problems. These two case studies reveal the elusive character of intangible heritage and heritage communities as rightsholders. We also use examples of other Estonian heritage projects, showing why IP and ICH mechanisms enable heritage communities to implement their human rights and build IP competencies with a special focus on ICH protection. We conceptualise human rights as practical tools to improve everyday life rather than as theoretical concepts.

The Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage (hereafter known as the Convention) was adopted within the framework of UNESCO in October 2003. Article 2 of the Convention establishes that intangible cultural heritage (ICH) must be compatible with sustainable development. Sustainable development in relation to culture consists of three intertwined dimensions: society, environment, and economy. Chapter 6 of the Operational Directives for the Implementation of this Convention establishes a framework related to “environmental sustainability”. The framework consists of three pillars. The first pillar relates to “environmental impacts in the safeguarding of intangible cultural heritage”. The second pillar relates to “knowledge and practices concerning nature and the universe”. The final pillar concerns “community-based resilience to natural disasters and climate change”. Through analysis of the Convention, the Convention’s Operational Directives and elements of intangible cultural heritage inscribed on the Representative List of the Convention, this article will provide case studies where, in line with these pillars, intellectual property rights, particularly geographical indications, aim to support environmentally friendly practices. In so doing, this article will also seek to show that intellectual property rights can recognise communities as bearers of knowledge about nature and as essential actors in sustaining the environment. Indeed, this work will suggest that although intellectual property rights, if not carefully drafted, can pose risks for environmental sustainability, when correctly adopted they have the capacity to empower communities. Thus, the aim of this work is to show how intellectual property rights can be tools to facilitate safeguarding and sustainability for both intangible cultural heritage and the environment.

The spatiotemporal distribution of intangible cultural heritage in Fujian Province, China, and the factors that influence it were explored using multiple spatial scales. The samples include five batches of Chinese national-level and six batches of Chinese provincial-level intangible cultural heritage items, totaling 554. The samples involve city-scale, county-scale, and traditional dwellings, and the analysis uses various methods, such as gravity migration theory and the GeoDetector model. The results show that, in terms of historical timescales, the moving trajectory of the center of gravity of the intangible cultural heritage distribution in Fujian Province involves reciprocation from north to south, and the center moves south in time from the pre-Qin period to the modern period. Spatially, intangible cultural heritage in Fujian Province forms an overall aggregate pattern, among which traditional skills fall into an aggregate pattern; five categories, including traditional drama, fall into an aggregate-random pattern; and four categories, including traditional medicine, fall into a random pattern. The traditional art category and other intensive distribution areas are located in coastal areas, and the traditional dance category is scattered in northwestern Fujian Province. Experiments on the factors influencing intangible cultural heritage distribution were conducted at the city and county levels. At the city level, human geography factors, such as the resident population, urbanization rate, and gross domestic product, have a greater influence on distribution. At the county level, the influence of physical geographical factors clearly increases. The dominant factors for coastal cities are the normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI), average precipitation, and coastline, and that for inland cities is elevation. From the perspective of categories, the dominant factors of traditional music and Quyi are human geography factors, and those of other types of intangible cultural heritage are the synergistic effects of physical geography and human geography. The conclusions of this study are helpful for systematically protecting and developing the intangible cultural heritage industry and improving research theories and methodological systems of the spatiotemporal distribution and mechanism influencing intangible cultural heritage.

In many disciplines, storytelling has gained recognition as a powerful tool for sharing wisdom, stimulating empathy, transmitting knowledge and persuading audiences about promotional messages. With the emergence of the worldwide web first, and social media more recently, much attention has been focused on the potential of digital storytelling. Storytelling is also considered by some as a means to safeguard and provide access to Intangible Cultural Heritage (ICH), for example through documentation and inventorying practices built on narration or through the development of websites and applications. Public availability and marketing of ICH may however expose heritage bearers to risks of misappropriation, decontextualization or misrepresentation, as has been recognized by the UNESCO’s 2008 Operational Directives for the Implementation of the Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage. How is it possible for heritage bearers to benefit from ICH storytelling while mitigating these risks? This article builds on work carried out in the context of two research projects that dealt with digital storytelling in very different manners: AlpFoodway, a EU Interreg Alpine Space project (2017–2019), which aimed to create a sustainable development model for peripheral mountain areas based on the preservation and valorization of the traditional Alpine food heritage; and the ongoing British Academy for Sustainability project “Celebrating local stewardship in a global market: community heritage, intellectual property protection and sustainable development in India”. Thanks to the lessons learned in the context of these two projects, this article shares some considerations on how approaches to storytelling developed in the field of marketing can assist with community empowerment and sustainable development. As a result, it contributes to a better understanding of the understudied and little understood conditions under which ICH entanglement with the market can be carried out in heritage sensitive and legally savvy manners that empowers individuals, groups and communities that are ICH bearers and ensures that they are the prime beneficiaries of the economic benefits of commercialization.

The term “Cultural Heritage” is a land which does not end not only at monuments or physical collections –material cultural heritage-, but also includes manifestations or living traditions from our ancestors transmitted to our future generations –intangible cultural heritage-. Despite its fragility, intangible cultural heritage is an essential piece in maintaining cultural diversity in the face of growing globalization. In fact, is in the field of neoliberalism that intellectual property rights seek to appropriate this intangible cultural heritage. Giving them an adequate treatment as commons and their adequate regulation is the purpose of this article.