In 1990, Paul Simon released “The Rhythm of the Saints“, which continued his foray into world music which he started with “Graceland”. The album was very successful, and being as Mr. Simon is a very nice guy, he decided to send a portion of the royalties to the government of Ghana, since one of the songs on the album, “Spirit Voices”, was based on an old Ghanan song, “Yaa Amponsah”.

The Ghanan government was very pleased with this influx of revenue with no labor on their part. So, they began to investigate the origins of the song, and found that like many folks songs in the U.S., there were many variations, and no single author could be found. The first instance of the song being recorded was in 1928, and the recording artist, Kwame Asare, had died in the 1950s.

Paul Simon’s actions agreed with the position of the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), which states that worldwide, artists should be compensated for their work, and that larger, richer countries shouldn’t just steal from the smaller countries (which Paul Simon was perfectly within his legal rights to do).

However, the Ghanan government has now realized that they have a potential goldmine on their hands in the form of their folklore and culture. So, Ghana has updated it’s copyright laws stating in essense that all anonymous works of Ghanan folklore belong to the Ghanan government. Unlike in the United States, where works whos copyrights expire now belong to the public (and become part of the common cultural ownership), now the government of Ghana owns the culture of the county.

If the United States passed a similar law, the stories of Johnny Appleseed, Paul Bunyan and Babe the Blue Ox, and Pecos Bill would belong to our Federal Government. Most of the early blues riffs would belong to the government, and artists would need to pay a fee in order to perform those old songs or retell the story of Paul Bunyan.

In the U.S., we’ve grown up with the idea that our culture is part of the commons, and that in order for us to feel like we are part of the culture, that our culture has to be our own. With the recent changes in intellectual property laws, our culture is no longer common, but is owned by corporations like Disney, or, in the case of Ghana, owned by the government.

(via BoingBoing. More info on Ghanamusic.com and an article entitled “The ‘folkloric copyright tax’ problem in Ghana“)