Unfortunately, because of the way that “free culture” gets sold sometimes students can only see any limitations or restrictions to access as negative and hence the practical use of copyright by Indigenous peoples oftentimes gets lumped in with the other “bad” guys (Sony, Microsoft, etc). The binary free culture/permission culture in this case works against seeing the historic and current economic and political reasons why some uses of IPR may benefit some Indigenous communities.

There is a growing body of work on this issue: Chander and Sunder’s “Romance of the Public Domain” is probably still one of the best pieces out there. I also wrote a piece in the International Journal of Cultural Property: “Gone Digital: Aboriginal Remix and the Cultural Commons” and Eric Kansa et al have a piece in the same volume: “Protecting Traditional Knowledge and Expanding Access to Scientific Data.” Also Rosemary Coombe and Andrew Herman’s “Rhetorical Virtues: Property, Speech, and the Commons on the World-Wide Web” is great.

Sasi sasi ae o angisi nau
Boroi nima oe e fasi koro na
Dolali dasa na, lao dai afuimae
Afuta guau mauri, Afuta wela inomae
Young brother, young brother you be quiet
Although you are crying to me
Your father has left us
He has gone to the place of the dead
Protect the head of the living, Protect the orphan child

Young brother, young brother hey? although you are crying to me
Your father has left us
He has gone to the place of the dead
Protect the head of the living, protect the orphan child
Interpreting the Song:

This interpretation and lyrics come from one very old lady, living in Fataleka (one of the Solomon Islands), as translated by her grandchildren. The song is said to be very old and hence the new generation does not understand every word.

The song is about a young child crying because he does not see his father with the family. In response his elder sister sung this song to comfort as well as tell him the reality, with an appeal for their deceased father to protect this child in the land of the living (local ancient belief is that the dead care for loved ones they left behind).

The old woman also said that the sample, if listened to carefully, used some words and sounds that were added to make it sound more melo. Expression of some words twice, as well pronounciation of most of the words are different from that of normal conversation. Eg. ‘O’ should be OE’, Angiangi should be angisi. This is very common with local traditional songs.

Thanks to the people of the Solomon Islands for the lyrics, translation, and interpretation

I found it in boy223′s youtube channel.