Linda Crowl -- publishing in the Pacific Islands: page 5

INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY AND RECOGNITION

The Pacific Islands have long been grounds for research and study. Since missionary times, publishing about the islands no longer happens only beyond the islands. Chapman (1993:24) argues:

'Until Islanders faced the prospect of independence, few saw a need to become involved in publishing material for themselves, using their own resources and expertise. But the stirrings of nationalism and the desire for freedom from external domination that characterized the period leading to independence, caused a number of thinkers to recognize that the ability to express their own opinions and aspirations and to disseminate them to an island audience was an integral part of achieving political maturity.'

I argue that the power of the media was not lost on Islanders, that more than a "few saw a need to become involved in publishing". However, few were trained in the skills of writing and illustrating, fewer still in editing and publishing. I also argue that the politics in small, closely related commmunities is more inhibiting to publishing than in large, diverse societies.
     Nevertheless, publishing by Islanders in the Pacific Islands is growing, though publishing by foreigners about the Islands continues to grow even faster and to outweigh by many times that by Islanders. A survey of publishing conducted ten years ago indicated 30,000 publications were produced annually in the South Pacific region, a tremendous increase over even a decade earlier (USP Library 1985). This number included reports, handbooks, leaflets and reprints. The number of books was much smaller. Williams (1986) showed that, although the largest publishers in the South Pacific were governments, churches, educational institutions and statutory bodies, the growth in small publishing units was significant. Some undertook one or a few jobs, then became obsolete; others continued. Moreover, indigenous publications were multiplying (Williams 1986). As more and more work is published in the Islands and by Islanders, interest in copyright and royalties is growing.
     A difference in meaning for 'information' exists between people who have inherited a culture of writing and publishing and those who are only beginning to do so. In societies with a long written tradition, information can be a commodity, which can be bought, sold, traded, shared. Much of it has a capitalistic sense. In societies where the tradition is oral, information has mana. Information is within a person, and is part of that person. Often it is secret; information holders select with whom they share their knowledge. They may lose part of their mana if they give it away. "But it has always been common in Melanesia to sell rights, e.g., to perform a dance or song created by another group or to prepare a certain remedy. History & genealogical knowledge [are] rarely sold, being too valuable" (Crocombe 1996).
     As globalism increases, people in the Islands become more aware of the economic potential of their knowledge. How could they not when reading newspaper stories about scientists' possibly discovering a cure for heart attacks from ngali nuts in Solomon Islands or a cure for AIDS from tree bark in Samoa? Incomes are extremely low in most Pacific Island countries, and need for cash is great. Literature may glorify subsistence economy, but most people in the Pacific Islands want to drink tea with milk and sugar, to eat tinned fish, to watch television and videos and to send their children to school ‹ activities that cost money and that many people in developed countries participate in without a second thought, and without having a rhetorical history of being able to live off the land and the sea.
     Providing information has always been seen as 'income' generating. "Most traditional skills were transferred by apprenticeship for which the apprentice & often his family paid for years" (Crocombe 1996). More important, Islanders are asking for authorial recognition. Outsiders may not understand how deep Pacific Island resentment is against people who 'take' information from Islanders and do not give credit. It is not enough that academics 'give back' information in book form. Islanders are producers and transmitters of knowledge, and they want to be acknowledged as such. AS THEY SHOULD BE.
     Nevertheless, some misperceptions exist here, as elsewhere, that publishing pays big bucks. This is true for only a small percentage writers, most of whom do not live in the Pacific Islands. Nevertheless, Pacific Islands people are clamouring for copyright protection and royalties. These are multifaceted swords.

Copyright

The World Intellectual Property Organization distinguishes between rights to folklore and copyright. In societies where written traditions are long, this is understandable. In societies which have long and living oral traditions that are greater than their written traditions, this is not acceptable. At a copyright conference sponsored by the Fiji Attorney-General's Chambers and World Intellectual Property Organization in March 1995, I argued that many people in the Pacific Islands do not regard their knowledge (which is often given the derogatory and condescending title of 'folklore') as any less entitled to copyright protection than anyone else's. Their knowledge is their own, whether spoken or written. In societies where reciprocity is a way of life, publishers and writers of other people's oral knowledge are expected to share monetary proceeds. Conference participants from industrialized countries who saw a clear line between folklore and copyright could not comprehend, thus paid no heed to, such arguments. Furthermore, it is to their monetary advantage to ignore such issues. It is recognized that the current push for copyright enforcement is driven by the World Trade Organization under pressure from multinational companies.
On the other side of the coin, determining ownership of knowledge in communities can be difficult. Moreover, Pacific Islands peoples are highly mobile, and name changes do not have just to do with marriages and divorces, so locating authors for permissions is difficult and time consuming.

Royalties

The need for cash is growing. No Pacific Islands society produces everything that it needs today, and needs are not wants. Subsistence living is difficult and can be boring. Cash widens choice and enhances potential. Cash lends status and prestige. More and more, things are measured in money terms. Royalties are payments to authors in recognition of their work. This is reasonable and to be encouraged when practicable.
However, a central agency producing tiny print runs and trying to keep prices down for customers in order to foster reading, research and writing across a region is presented with enormous obstacles. The time, energy and transaction costs of following royalties of a few dollars are far greater than the royalties are worth. In the Pacific Islands where much of the publishing is institutional and tied to aid donors with lengthy and duplicative reporting requirements, the choice often boils down to producing a few books and becoming embroiled in royalty paperwork or producing more books and giving away as many as possible to authors, editors, schools and libraries as well as selling copies at the lowest possible price. Given that libraries have multiple users per book and journal, i.e., a greater audience, publishers should not charge a higher 'institutional' price, a practice common among academic journal publishers.

[ NEXT ] [ CONTENTS ]