Despite the breadth of Australia's laws protecting
intellectual property, there is a major fall short in affording
substantial intellectual property rights to cultural groups,
communities, traditional/indigenous owners, or manifestations of
intellectual property that do not fit within the specified
categories.
The issue
What about painting in dots and spots? What about the bold
colours of the land, with white dots to outline and differentiate
the patterns and colours? What about sharing painting activities,
sharing Aboriginal stories or about copying the images of a culture
as captured on rock art or in other tangible forms?
Australia's copyright and other intellectual property laws
do not protect the idea of painting in dots or using hashes,
symbols and style that may be directly taken (but not copied) from
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander (ATSI) art. There is no
copyright protection for copying original images because the
material being copied is
