Thai Government Wants To Copyright Muay Thai
from the not-this-again dept
Over the past few years, we've seen a disturbing trend whereby various countries (many of whom have been pressured to put in place intellectual property laws to appease the US) suddenly start putting intellectual property protections over foods or culturally significant items. For example, there was Lebanon's attempt to "copyright" hummus, Malaysia's attempt to "copyright" popular dishes like Nasi Lamak, and Kenya's recent attempt to "copyright" a traditional bag. Of course, none of these are really "copyrights" in the traditional sense. They're all attempts to use the basic bastardized concept of intellectual property to try to control a piece of cultural heritage.It appears that Thailand is jumping into this realm as well. thai101 points us to a story of the Thai government "protecting" 25 forms of "traditional arts, wisdom and folklore" via a form of intellectual property protection. Also included? The recently quite popular (in the West) martial art of Muay Thai. Generally these attempts to "protect" such national artforms or foods don't really mean much from a practical standpoint, but it does show how convincing the world that a concept like "intellectual property" is a good thing can lead them to start looking to lock up all sorts of stuff.
