News/Research

Sonia Katyal Published in the California Law Review on Technoheritage

31 Oct, 2017

Sonia Katyal Published in the California Law Review on Technoheritage

Sonia Katyal, BCNM ExComm member and co-director of the Berkeley Center of Law for Technology, wrote an article article about the relationship between technology, user interactivity, and cultural institutions inside and outside the scope of the law.

Titled "Technoheritage" and published in the California Law Journal, Katyal points out the simultaneous destruction and presevation of cultural properties in the piece. Katyal explains in her abstract:

Today’s archaeological moment demonstrates both the possibilities and limitations behind “technoheritage”—the marriage of technology and cultural heritage. Toward that end, this Article argues that, in order to understand the relationship between technology and cultural heritage, it might be helpful to study the theoretical dimensions behind interactivity itself. Just as technology has the power to preserve and protect ancient artifacts, it also invites a dizzying array of legal conflicts over their digitization and replication, particularly with regards to the intersection of copyright law with cultural identity. Unpacking this further, this Article offers a tripartite taxonomy of interactivity: the first, described as extractive (drawing upon the accumulation and selection of data); the second, immersive (drawing upon new forms of user participation through virtual and augmented reality); and the third, derivative (drawing upon new possibilities of user creation). Normatively, I argue that these models of interactivity provide us with an important framework with which to examine the importance of copyright protection for cultural heritage. In the concluding section, I suggest a potential way of rethinking the museum by drawing on the logic and legal protection extended to databases and archives in an age of unprecedented user interactivity.

Read the rest of the article here.