UCLY – LL.M. In International Business Law – Master 1 International and European Intellectual Property Law – Enrico Bonadio Student: Lívia Teixeira Costa Zamith ASSIGNMENT People and communities such as the Masai in Kenya and Tanzania should fight against cultural appropriation of their traditional knowledge by luxury fashion labels. Pushed by internet, the globalization ensures the ongoing cultural development with the enlargement of the communication between different cultures and, therefore, the instantaneous disseminations of knowledge, ideas and traditions. Likewise, the industrial capitalist culture supports the use, on a massive scale, of cultural assets as goods or serving entertainment purposes. In this scenario, less privileged communities are claiming the appropriation of aspects of its culture by powerful groups, protesting on how these cultural assets are diminished – which is therefore causing priceless losses to the communities which are owners of these assets. In these communities, the individual and communitarian identities are marked by these cultural aspects – and there is no doubt that, through the years, they’re cultural heritage went by several remakes and modernization. In this process, social groups which are not “owners” of these cultural baggage’s hijack these assets, misrepresenting them. Susan Scafidi, an expert in this subject, states that “This taking-from a culture that is not one´s own- of intellectual property, cultural expressions or artifacts, history and ways of knowledge is often termed cultural appropriation”. 1 As understood by Sturcken and Cartwright 2 “the term “appropriation” is traditionally defined as taking something for oneself without consent. To appropriate is, in essence to 1 SCAFIDI, Susan. Who Owns Culture? Appropriation and Authenticity in American Law – Rutgers University Press, 2005. p. 09 2 STURKEN, Marita e Lisa Cartwright. Practices of Looking: An Introduction to Visual Culture. NYV: Oxford University Press, 2001. p. 59