Traditional Knowledge Laws: Botswana

Subject Matter of Protection

Section 2 - Interpretation

"expression of folklore" means a group-oriented and tradition-based creation of groups or persons reflecting the expectation of the community as an adequate expression of its cultural and social identity, its standards and values as transmitted orally, by imitation or by other means including-
(i) folktales, folk poetry, and folk riddles;
(ii) folk songs and instrumental folk music;
(iii) folk dances and folk plays;
(iv) productions of folk arts in particular, drawings, paintings, carvings, sculptures, pottery, terra-cotta, mosaic, woodwork, metal-ware, jewellery, handicrafts, costumes, and indigenous textiles;

"performer" means a singer, musician or other person who sing, deliver, declaim, play in, or otherwise perform literary and artistic works or expressions of folklore;

Section 3 - Works protected

(2) Literary and artistic works under this Act include-

(d) stage productions of works referred to in paragraph (a) and of expressions of folklore;

Section 4 - Derivative works

(1) The following derivative works shall be protected as works-
      (b) collections of works, collections of mere data (data bases), whether in machine readable or other form, and collections of expression of folklore, provided that such collections are original by reason of the selection, co-ordination or arrangement of their contents.
(2) The protection of any work referred to in subsection (1) shall be without prejudice to any protection of a pre-existing work or expression of folklore incorporated in or utilized for the making of such a work.