[Icommons] Aboriginal archive's new DRM: Cultural Solution?
Fred Benenson
fred.benenson at gmail.com
Tue Jan 29 15:36:22 EST 2008
>
>
> I don't see this as a conundrum, I see it as a negative effect of
> technology. I don't think that enforcing class, tribal end gender
> divisions through code is a good thing. It takes a heavy dose of
> cultural relativism on behalf of other people to see it as a good thing.
I don't think the point is that code enables people to enforce tribal mores
through technology, but that an indiscriminate campaign of releasing work to
the world may be presupposing certain western-centric perspectives on access
to knowledge and information. In this case they've taken to code so that
they can be sensitive to this. This may not be the best solution, but it
does highlight another facet to the issue of the standard
information-wants-to-be mantra.
I think there's an important question about whether or not we can come to
terms with cultural practices and mores with respect to knowledge and
cultural dissemination. We can either accept that there are distinctly
different (and perhaps they're pre-modern) systems of thought that conflict
with our modern or western (and forgive the phrase, "enlightened")
perspectives. Or our other option is to, as many western cultural
imperialists before us have done, force our own world view on indigenous
people.
Rob, what do you think we should say to the anthropologists that want to
educate tribal members about their own history through technology? Should we
tell them "Listen, these tribes have (sexist? classist?) social practices
and traditions that are essentially incompatible with how we understand
access to culture, so just ignore them and continue the slide show." OR
should we make an effort to accommodate their perspectives?
I think this is an immensely interesting "conundrum" because it parallels
how "tribes" within culture work. The tribe of photographers, for example,
has different mores and expectations on how its work is released and
distributed to the public than the "tribe" of musicians.
On the other hand, I don't think DRM is being used in the right way in this
article. The use of rights management here seems to have a lot more to do
with file permissions (I'm forgetting the right term of these) than
copyright, which is what DRM is traditionally used to refer to.
And what's also interesting is that the software being used in this context
appears to be a relatively decent translation (I'm assuming) of a literal
interpretation of the tribe law. That is, if you are a female of a certain
age, then you can get access to a particular document. This contrasts one of
the most significant problems of traditional DRM (that it cannot anticipate
fair uses) because it is so simple.
Ok, sorry for the long post, but thanks for the interesting link, Joy!
Fred
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