Cultural Documentation and IP Management Training Program

WIPO provides practical training to indigenous and local communities in recording, digitizing and disseminating their own cultural traditions and in managing IP issues and options for the purpose of safeguarding both their cultural heritage for future generations and their interest in authorizing use of their recordings and traditions by third parties.

WIPO, in collaboration with the American Folklife Center (AFC) at the Library of Congress in Washington D.C. and the Center for Documentary Studies (CDS) at Duke University in North Carolina and the National Museums of Kenya, ran a pilot of such a training program for a Maasai community from Laikipia, Kenya, in 2008 and 2009. This short film shows the trainees during the pilot program at the CDS and their impressions.

The intensive, hands-on curriculum of this training program includes, amongst others, project planning, research ethics, photography, sound and audio-visual recording techniques, digital archiving methods, and database and website development. WIPO staff would provide the IP component of the training.

The program is still under development.