
The fight to 'free' the Aboriginal flag - teruakohatu
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-australia-49315063
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vikramkr
Its ironic that a flag designed to support a land rights movement ends up in a
situation where the indigenous peoples are fighting for the rights to it. Is
there some deeper reason behind why the designer of the flag would claim
copyright and try and make money off the flag - maybe to prevent some other
sort of exploitation? Otherwise that seems like a pretty greedy and directly
hypocritical thing to do.

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kevin_b_er
Looks like just greed.

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0xdeadb00f
I don't think it's fair to say this is solely the result of the greed of the
designer. It's much more nuanced than that.

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legostormtroopr
There is no good solution to this problem. Harold Thomas (an Indigenous
Australian) designed this flag and asserts his moral rights over it. The
Australian government designated it a national flag without consulting him. In
the past there have been discussions about the government buying the rights to
the flag, but have not proceeded. If Harold Thomas is the designer, he has the
right to profit from his design as he sees fit - and the demands of
extraordinarily rich companies like Google or the AFL demanding to use his
design for free is disrespectful to all artists.

The Australian government thus has two choices:

A. Support Thomas's copyright claim, which allows him to lease those rights to
private companies. If he wishes to sell to them for an agreed amount he can -
but this hasn't happened in the past as the price is too high.

B. Reject his copyright claims, and take ownership of the flag on behalf of
Indigenous Australian.

Under option A, Indigenous Australian's don't have the ability to use a flag
they believe is "theirs". Under option B, the Government will be seen to be
repeating history by ignoring indigenous rights to property (albeit
intellectual property).

There is no easy solution, so people attack WAM clothing (who are just
asserting their leased claims) because demanding that Harold Thomas give up
his moral rights over the design is not an easy sell to people who are trying
to respect Indigenous rights in general.

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shardinator
The government should make a one-off large payment and buy the rights. Of
course the details could be complex, but it’s a starting point.

~~~
0xdeadb00f
I would expect that the for same government that destroyed indigenous families
and culture to buy the rights to an indigenous symbol doesn't sit right with
indigenous people.

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bloak
I'm surprised something that simple can be protected by copyright. But
apparently it is: Wikipedia says so. (I wouldn't trust a BBC journalist to
understand the difference between a copyright and a trade mark or even a
patent.)

I wonder where the limit would be. If it had been just two coloured stripes,
using standard flag colours, without the circle, would that be protected by
copyright?

