Mulonga.net is a platform for a very special kind of sustaining and furthering cultural diversity and cultural exchange between the area of the Tonga people of Zimbabwe and across the Zambezi River in Zambia, Austria and the world.
The Tonga.Online Project, that has been launched in 2001, has focused attention on promoting a Tonga voice over the Internet. The aim is to provide the Tonga with access to the most advanced communication tools, so that they may represent themselves to the outside world and reflect upon the social, political and economic environment in which they live.
“Although, in recent years, attention for the necessity of intellectual property rights has grown enormously against the backdrop of globalisation and digitisation, until now no consensus has been found in the music sector,” Peter Rantasa, chairman of the panel discussion “Intellectual Property Rights” at the 2nd World Forum on Music in Beijing that will be held Friday, director of mica - music austria, and founder of the initiative fair music, states.
Rantasa says, it is no coincidence that the topics of globalisation and digitisation appear simultaneously and he also gives the reasons for the current situation: “Rich countries, artists and industries logically defend their positions. Openness for a new and innovative approach which meets the requirements of a model orientated towards a balance of interests is to be found among those who have been refused access to global markets.”
Mp3 is just a technology, a method to compress audio. But for some it is devil’s advocate because it actually made the quick and easy sharing of music over the internet possible. But one could as well “think of an mp3 as metadata about the artist”, was Joi Ito, chairman of the board of Creative Commons and member of the board of ICANN, considering at the fair music discussion in Linz in September.
“The internet is about creating relationships between the artist and the user. The problem with labels is: this brand is standing between you and the artist. We know from experience that people actually pay more if it’s going directly to the artist.”, says Ito. For artists it is therefore necessary to experiment and one possibility to find new ways of dealing with their own intellectual property is the alternative licensing scheme Creative Commons. Ito: “We think it is important to let the artist decide under which circumstances they want to give away their work and when they want to be paid.”
For the first time, an attempt is being made in the field of culture to achieve a balance of interests between the right to intellectual property and the right to participate in world culture. The 2nd World Forum on Musicof the International Music Council (IMC) in Beijing this Friday brings together representatives from the WIPO (World Intellectual Property Organization), royalty collecting societies and artists, the International Musicians’ Union, the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), one of the globally most prominent civil rights initiatives, as well as Creative Commons and the fair music initiative. The discussion-process on Intellectual Property Rights (IPRs) is anchored by the International Music Council, the top-level umbrella-organization of music-related NGOs associated with UNESCO. The debate seeks a balancing of interest within the framework the Musical Rights of the IMC. Moderator and chair of the IPR-Panel is Peter Rantasa, a member of the IMC’s board of directors and the initiator of fair music, the first global initiative for justice and fairness in the music business.
“Never in history music has been able to get so far, geographically, as now.”, says Ronaldo Lemos, law professor at Fundação Getulio Vargas law school in Rio de Janeiro, head of Creative Commons Brazil and chairman of iCommons, at a fair music discussion at Ars Electronica in Linz in September. By this Lemos means that the internet and digital technologies enabled the spread of music globally in a simple, cheap and fast way. This technological change leads to societal changes according to art and culture.
To give an example Ronaldo Lemos describes the scene of Tecno Brega in Brazil. Tecno Brega is a mix between an 80s beat with very romantic music, which is great for dancing together and therefore extremely popular in Brazil, especially in the north. The Tecno Brega scene releases around 400 new CDs every year and the so called Sound System Parties are crowded every weekend. Sony BMG, the largest music label in Brazil, in 2006 only released 13 CDs of brazilian music, Ronaldo Lemos remarks.
According to BBC online news, NME reviews editor Julian Marshall thinks more bands are going to attempt new ideas in music distribution and music marketing like Radiohead: “I think it’s actually a really exciting time. People have been talking for years about how the internet was going to change the way people approach releasing their records,” Marshall says to BBC. Entertainment Retailers Association deputy chairman Ben Drury is quoted: “There are more ways to get music than ever before and really, it’s those labels that adapt to those conditions are the ones that will survive and prosper.”
Mulonga.net is a platform for a very special kind of sustaining and furthering cultural diversity and cultural exchange between the area of the Tonga people of Zimbabwe and across the Zambezi River in Zambia, Austria and the world.
