Aboriginal art: is protection or education the issue ?

Paper presented at the Art Crime Protecting Art, Protecting Artists and Protecting Consumers Conference.

Let me start with an anecdote. Earlier this year our Minister received an enquiry from an Australian member of an American-based email discussion group. It was about potential actions available to address the apparent growth of trade in the United States in didgeridoos allegedly being manufactured and painted with "Aboriginal" designs in Thailand. In researching the issue, we discovered that there is a plethora of websites with content on didgeridoos – over 500 sites identified on one links list! In advising the Minister regarding a response to the email, we not only drew attention to the potential applicability of legislation such as the Copyright Act in providing protection to creators of artistic works – including Aboriginal artists and craftpersons – and to the range of organisations which could provide specific advice - such as NIAAA, Viscopy, the Arts Law Centre, the Copyright Council and Vivien Johnson’s House of Aboriginality project at Macquarie University - but we also suggested that the Minister provide the email discussion group with a statement on the issue, drawing attention to these protections and resources. The Minister was pleased to issue the statement; it was posted to discussion group members and we received some positive feedback. We also referred it to the Yothu Yindi Foundation for interest, following the release of the Garma Festival Yidaki Statement earlier this year.