ABSTRACT
This chapter explores whether the claims made about identity and intellectual property are ambit claims made with a political agenda of power redistribution in postcolonial Australia. Internationally, indigenous peoples have been asserting for over three decades that they have special rights in cultural property. According to Rosemary Coombe, the recodification of meaning is 'the most important' cultural resource for the articulation of identity, and dissent. However, intellectual property laws objectify and reify cultural forms, 'freezing the connotations of signs and symbols and fencing off fields of cultural meanings with "no trespassing" signs'. The survival of Aboriginal culture is not the only moral interest that is at stake in this issue. Other interests at stake are the interest non-Aboriginal Australians have in preserving their own artistic traditions, and the interest all people have in freedom of expression. The chapter also provides an overview of the key concepts discussed in this book.
