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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Guest&nbsp; 85555" data-source="post: 6705110">I think we should respond but also with some amount of reason. Not every complaint is necessitates a response. Not every complaint is reasonable. Responding to people being offended or bothered though is, in my view, separate from the discussion of whether cultural appropriation is a workable concept. I just don't find cultural appropriation ever helpful in these sorts of discussions. Talking about offensiveness of the content due to things like being insensitive or stereotyping is a lot more productive than treating cultural borrowing itself as a kind of colonialism or hate speech.It existing as a concept doesn't mean I have to accept it as having value. I am free to critique it when I think it is not terribly useful or even harmful. I see it as a concept that creates more division than unity and is too amorphous to have a lot of use. It isn't something I think about in my design. I think about whether I am being sensitive and how well I am portraying things. I don't wring my hands over concerns of appropriating. Sure but the concept of cultural appropriation does not help us do this. It makes the process more difficult and freezes dialogue. At least I don't find it helpful for myself and I've never seen it result in anything but argument and debate elsewhere. Being thoughtful when dealing with other cultures is a good thing. Employing a concept like cultural appropriation toward that end, is in my view not very productive. I've just never really seen it help anything. It is either a bludgeon to bang people over the head with or this esoteric thing that nobody seems to truly understand.  But it is a terrible analogy. IP is meant to protect individual works of a creator, not a style, trend or vibe. If people want to go down this road they are opening a huge pandoras box of problems for artists. Apple Pie is a feature of american culture, no individual can claim to own it. Once things enter into the culture they are shared, they don't belong to a single person. Traditionally Copyright doesn't cover feel or vibe. The reason I mentioned the blurred lines case was because it was decided on that basis, and for that reason, a horrible decision in my view. They didn't invoke cultural appropriation but it is a very similar argument (and a lot of the people pushing for 'look and vibe' in musicology do so on the grounds of cultural appropriation). If 'sound ad vibe' is covered people can only be 100% original with zero influence from others or stick entirely to the cannon of their respective folk traditions. It is simply too broad. A lot of people recognize that decision as bad, but it sets a very terrible precedent for musicians and composers. It won't empower anyone. It will just make it harder to earn a living making music. This is going to stifle art, stifle cultural exchange and build walls. It makes cultures things you cannot cross. It makes us unknowable to each other. It is totally fair for cultures to want to be respected. I don't think it is fair to expect people will treat our cultural artifacts in the same way as us. In my view American copyright law is already bad enough and favors companies way more than artists. I'd much rather we not protect apples look and feel and instead protect the works of individual creators. But to answer: Because once something leaves one culture into another, you can't have control of where it leads. Thinking that my people have control of what shape a musical style, a religious concept, or chair design when other people think its cool and start adapting it to their own culture makes zero sense. It isn't a commentary on me. It is merely how they are coming to understand and use something. Now if they use it to make a commentary on my people or deliberately insult them, that is fair to discuss. Like I said, I am all for being sensitive. But I don't think its reasonable to take offense because someone uses something in a different way than you do or in a way that your people consider not suitable (even if in the first instance its a very sacred and meaningful idea and in the other becomes more mundane).</blockquote>

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