Cultural Icons

Here in Aust we have a Kangaroo an an Emu on our coat of arms. This is because they not only symbolise Australia but because both can not walk backwards (Advance Australia Fair and all that).

It has been in the news for the last few days, I thought it was a joke at first.

Our Indegenous People are suing us over copyright as we can not produce 'in writting from an Aborigine' a transfer of copyright. All companies using native animals, ie Qantas, are to be targeted.

This is similar to American Indians suing over the use of the Bald Eagle as an American icon.

Best bit, law suit is funded by legal aid, so the we the people are in effect paying to sue ourselves!

What do you think?

I'm not sure what they are claming. Because as far as I know, copyright works on the basis of intelectual property. Now i'm farily certian that the aboridgines did not actually invent or design either the kangeroo or the emu, so how are they claiming intelectual property over it?

They say it is a Aboriginal icon. As are all representations of native animals. That is they painted it first and can prove it (on a cave / rock) and so we copied it.

Yes, how can you claim copyright over an animals image eg Mustang cars and Ferrari both have horses.

Maybe its a media beat up, but they say the case could take a decade.

Ok. . .
So if I see some sort of alien and draw a picture of it, then I can claim copyright on it and stop anone else fon ever drawing a picture of alien ever again?

yeah, yeah, and there are people who want the all of the cities in the US renamed so that they don't have the word "Saint" in them, and people who want "in god we trust" removed from the money, and people who want to secede their 5 acres of land in Texas from the Union. It's all just a matter of people with a lot of time and sticks up their asses; they are harmless and if you ignore them, then they go away.

We have a farmer who suceeded(?)

Its called the 'Hutt River Province'.

Suceeded in what?
I hope its not sueing the government over some inane and trivial matter.

seceded, sorry typo

Left Australia.
No longer part of Australia in the same way the ACT is not part of NSW. (They could not decide if Sydney or Melbourne should be the capital so they found a place about half way and...)

Hutt River has own immigration, currency and post office. Even royalty!

How ****ing petty are some Aboriginal people going to stoop? This is ridiculous, honestly. We have done so much for them in the past 50 years, trying to improve relations with them, realising the mistakes of the past.

This reminds me of some activist wanting to sue Coon Cheese because the word is a derogatory term for an Aboriginal person. The dickhead didn't realise that Coon was the name of the founder of the company.

Some of them are just trying to score cheap points against us. It's not my families fault that they were killed when the first fleet arrived. My grandfather's came here after WWII from Ireland. Why should I be made to feel acountable for what some people did 200 years ago? Do I go abusing every English person I see because of what they did to the Irish? No, because it is not their fault.

Icon my arse. They did not create the animals of this land. If it were the use of a boomerang, that is an Indigenous icon. Native animals are not. What because they ****ing ate them? Bloody hell, how ****ing stupid.

Don't get me wrong, I have nothing against the Aboriginal people, but some of them (like some of us) are just plain ****ing idiots.

I agree.
There has to be some positive descrimination to even the balance, until we are all see ourselves as equals, but this is taking the *iss.

Remember though, up until the late 50's Abrigines were classed as Fauna, not humans.

But if you took the money the government gives to their agencies and paid them a salary instead, cutting the polies and wasters out, each one would get around Au$40k.

Giving them more money isn't going to help a single bit.
I'm not sure about the actual figures but there's a school in Walget (a country town in north west NSW that almost noone's ever heard of). The school has 90% proportion aboridgines and only 30% of them actually finish high school (ok well i do know some figures).
However they recieve enough funding to regulary send the rugby team on international trpis (the latest being to South Africa) and maintain a completly up to date computer room complete with broad band net access.
My school on the other hand is in Sydney and is ranked in the top 10 of the state, all the students finish year 12 and over 60% of them get UAI's of 90 or higher. Yet we are soo under funded that the school can't even afford to get us text books, instead we had to provide our own copies of Richard III.

I do some volunteer work helping at a special schools IT.

Their whole budget for IT in 2000-2001 was Au$2000.

> up until the late 50's Abrigines were classed as Fauna, not humans

Remember this next time a US vs everyone fight comes up...

AS for the topic - it's pretty stupid... I should go patent 1 and 0 so I can get all of Gatesy's money....

I'm going to Copyright "stupidity"! Then sue the British Gov't :)

I saw the other week that in europe you will now be able to copyright a shape. Coke, and othe cmpanies are now in battles to get the best shapes, and fight out who owns what shape...

I know you cant copyright single digits, however you can copyright actualy numbers ( i forget how and why). So i suppose you could copyright the shape O then sue every bank in the world for having similar shapes on the notes, credit cards etc! Infact, you could probably sue everyon in the world except the Chinees and the Japanees!

By the way, do you still have PM in Oz? or have you moved onto a President yet?

>>Didn't someone in Australia recently patent the Wheel

Not only that but he won an Ignoble award for it.

i saw in the recent scientific american four 'really, really bad' patents:
the 3d pie chart graph(1996) (published in computer journals since the 70s)
training manuals (1998)
Effectiveness of an ad (1999)
gene profiling (1998) (not as obvious, basically a method of showing how drugs affect cells)

Quote:

---

Originally posted by Jock


By the way, do you still have PM in Oz? or have you moved onto a President yet?

---

We are still part of the Commonwealth, so we still have a Prime Minister. Gosh, he's (John Howard) over in NYC as we speak, don't you watch the news?

There was a referendum held a year or two back asking if we wanted to become a republic. The result was NO, but this was not so much because people want to still be part of Britain, it was because the model for the republic was rubbish. Most people felt a US-style government, where the president is actually the head of the governemnt would be best. They were only offering a president to replace our Govenor General (who acts as the head of state on behalf of the Queen). So the idea of spending millions just to make a change to the title of one person's role seemed pretty stupid. Plus the fact that we would not have been allowed to vote for the President under the proposed republic model seemed ludicrous.

Surely the people bringing the case against the Australian Government would have to prove that the Aboriginal cave drawings of the indiginous life were drawn as representations of themselves as a people rather than, for example, a game of pictionary because the were bored on Wednesday night. Which could be rather difficult given the lack of first hand accounts form the time they were drawn.

>>Remember this next time a US vs everyone fight comes up...

Hey, we did some very bad things to them in the past. Just as the US did to its natives (ie Wounded Knee) and to to other countries natives (slavery).
I would not mind the frivoulous law suit except we are paying for it, as all is done on legal aid.
"Let them eat lawyers" I say.

As to the referendum on getting rid of the commonwealth.
That was a farce from the begining. We were never asked the pelbocide (non binding question of constitutional change) ie "Do you want a Republic?") and then on to the follow up of what type.
Instead got a referendum (binding) (ie "Do you want THIS type of republic?") where the polies elect one of their own as the President, we have no say.

Howard, a traditional monarchist, set the wording of the question to get the outcome he wanted. Playing off the factions in the Republicans who wanted different types of a republic.

There has never been a YES to a referendum.

>>There has never been a YES to a referendum.

Take a look at your clock.
Either your looking at the result of a 'yes' referendum (daylight savings) or your running about an hour late for everything (or your in queensland, but they don't work on normal time any way).

Sorry, here in WA there has never been a YES to daylight savings either.

I'm not sure that the change to daylight savings is actually a referendum as no change to the constitution took place afterwards.