Intellectual property rights

 We tend to assume the concepts of intellectual property rights or copyright were established in the modern world. However, a particular ethnic group in Africa has strict traditional rules about rights concerning songs.

 The rules are these. If there is a song, the owner of the song must be just one person. Other people are not allowed to sing that song. Even if you love a song and memorize the song, you can’t sing it. If you sing the song without permission from the owner, you are a thief. According to the rules you should not record or listen to any songs. KARAOKE? No way!

 If you want to listen to a song, you need to visit the owner and ask him or her to sing.

 It could be an interesting society.

If you think:

“Wow! I want to listen to the song. The song belongs to the person who lives in the next town.”

You need to visit the town, maybe with some presents. If the owner is not well or not in a singing mood, you need to stay and wait in the town for a while. Finally, you may get to listen to the song.

 It is possible to imagine people naturally gather around an elderly person who is lying in his or her deathbed.

The elderly person would say:

“Thank you for taking care of me for a long time. I want to give you my property. I will give you my farms. I will give you my cows. I will give you my songs…”

People could finally get the right to sing songs this way.

 I found this information in a book which was written by a cultural anthropologist ten years ago. So I am not sure if the ethnic group is keeping to the rules now. Africa! I heard there have been rapid economic developments in some areas. It is possible that the people in the ethnic group could download music from the internet and sing KARAOKE now.

Picture by Katyau