Wednesday, February 07, 2007

Stealing intellectual property

There's a really big problem in Afganistan ... I mean, aside from the whole war and people dying thing. People are stealing museum artifacts and trying to sell them to foreign museums. I'm offended by this, but then I can't help thinking that I'm being a bit hypocritical as a white North American. We've been stealing artifacts for centuries. Both domestically (First Nation art) and internationally (ex, Egyptian artifacts). I remember reading a few years ago about museums taking responsibility for their stolen goods and returning some to their country of origin, but are we doing enough? Should we maybe compensate them for our actions? I don't have the answer, at least in part because I don't really know enough of the facts. But, it's something to think about next time you visit a museum.

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