A Comparative Overview of Legal Protection of Folklore

Folklore consists of two separate words, "folk" and "lore". "Folk" means people and "lore" means knowledge. Generally, the folklore refers to culture and traditional knowledge. We can also define folklore as a collection of works, creations, ideas and tradition of certain groups or ethnics belonging to a nation that include tangible and intangible elements, such as, literature and artistic work, values, practices, traditional knowledge and the like. In this article, we have reviewed the experience of certain countries in this respect. We have also discussed the model law drafted by WIPO and UNESSCO for protection of folklore. This article is mainly dealt with this model law in order to assess whether it has been successful in providing full photoreaction of folklore.