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Intellectual Property And Culture, Lucie Guibault

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This paper takes a critical look at the interaction between intellectual property law and culture using three examples, namely: 1) the need to preserve and disseminate culture, through the recognition of cultural heritage institutions' vital role in society; 2) the need to maintain culture from depreciation, through the safeguard of a strong public domain; and 3) the need to let culture evolve, through the protection of Traditional Cultural Expressions (TCE's). This brief study shows that, although IP rights can be said to afford useful protection to objects of culture – taken in the narrow sense of ‘culture’, they can also …