The Intellectual Property of Sovereign Tribes

Abstract

Listen

Translate article

This article discusses how indigenous groups are using intellectual property rights (IPR) law and how these rights are being expanded. Indigenous groups and their advocates in the United States, Canada, and other countries are experimenting aggressively with IPR to solve a keenly felt problem: how to gain control over what outsiders can use of indigenous culture. The main instruments of intellectual property are ill suited for this job; however, the applications of IPR for tribal groups are not negligible and are providing some legal protections. Indigenous groups and their advocates are also conducting an extensive global campaign to modify or supplement existing IPR instruments to make them more useful for protecting traditional culture. In the interim, indigenous groups are relying on measures at the level of their reservations and tribal governments that, in varying degrees, impose some collective control over outsiders' unfettered appropriation of their cultural information.