Appendix 6 - International Music Council

such domination, in many countries it is a fait accompli and to reverse it could require
remedies worse than the disease. In any case, it can also be accepted that to a degree, this
common experience among people of very differing cultures can be a basis for togetherness
when so much else is division. What is quite inappropriate is for a country simply to
acquiesce to a total take-over of popular music by outside forces. It can field its own team,
just as it does in football or tennis. Local musicians and record companies can be supported
in their enterprise in popular music, preferably in a local musical dialect. This maintains
some level of diversity even in the face of deliberate homogenisation.
Where local traditional musics are at risk, governments can
ensure that they are thoroughly
recorded and documented both for historical archives and as a source of possible restoration
should subsequent generations so desire.
Governments must ensure by one or another means that a diversity of musical genres,
especially local
genres, is accessible through media known or yet to be invented.
Development of music sectors
Appendix 2?????? describes quite a number of projects to assist development of music
sectors in developing countries. This is an activity in which the International Music Council
intends to become active. There are many models on display in the Appendix. Most would
require some level of government involvement or consent, but some seem to have been
carried through with private funds.
Intellectual property rights
Music diversity must have an economic basis to be sustained. Some forms of musical
diversity are probably most under threat in developing countries. In some of these
countries, IPR law and its enforcement is weak.
Without IPR in music, the income of musicians is limited basically to that derived from
direct contact with the public through live performances or face to face sales of recordings.
To a great extent, the opportunities
for, for instance, record companies would seem to be
similarly limited. While music can thrive without IPR law, the foundations for the
development of a self-sustaining 'industry' seem to be lacking.
On the other hand, it is conceivable that with
the adoption of IPR law and accession to the
various international IPR agreements,
a country is signing to the immediate export of funds
to the dominant international producers of music content, to attracting marketing and sales
of international popular music and possibly the establishment of national offices of the
major transnational
recording companies -- probably at the expense of local musics and
even their survival, and other outcomes of questionable benefit.
There is a need for a study to set out alternatives and their advantages and disadvantages for
the development of a maximally self-sustaining culture of musical diversity.
• Which states intend to or are likely to contribute to the International Fund for Cultural
Diversity?
Since the present Australian government is unlikely to ratify the UNESCO Convention for
cultural diversity, it may be unlikely also to contribute to this fund.
277