Consent, Rights and Intellectual Property: Navigating Language Documentation, Archiving, and Research

Susan Kung, Archive of the Indigenous Languages of Latin, UT-Austin

Edward Alexander, (Gwich’in),

Dinjii Zhuh K’yaa (Regional Gwich’in Language Center and Archive) 

Have you ever wondered who owns the copyright to the language materials you collect when you are in the field? Have you thought about the intellectual property rights that are associated with recordings you made? Have you considered the cultural property rights of the groups with whom you work? Maybe you got someone's consent to participate in your field research, but did you get her permission to put your field recordings in a language archive? How is digital Internet access to content creating new opportunities and challenges? Are you new to field work and confused about what informed consent is and how to get it? Do you ever wonder how consent, permission, intellectual property, cultural property, and copyright interact with each other and how they affect language researchers, community members, archive staff and even the general public? If you answered "Yes!" to any of these questions, then this is the workshop for you! This course contextualizes all these issues with respect to language documentation, archiving, and research. It is intended for anyone (student, researcher, community member, archive user) of any level who wishes to have a better understanding of these issues and their implications for research and scholarship.