Members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) are struggling to obtain intellectual property rights to protect the region's various communal arts and cultural products on the international market, the Jakarta Post reported on Friday.

In a meeting of the ASEAN Senior Official Meeting for Culture and Arts (SOMCA) in Kuta of Indonesia's Bali province from Sept. 28 through Sept. 30, Indonesia's Director General for Cultural Value, Arts and Film Sulistyo Tirtokusumo maintained that the world mostly acknowledged intellectual property rights of technology products. "Art and cultural works remain uncovered by these rights," Tirtokusumo said. The ASEAN region is rich in arts and cultural works, the majority of which are communal products. "We (the ASEAN countries) will struggle to register and to obtain acknowledgement of our communal arts from world bodies such as the World Intellectual Property Organization," he noted. He cited examples of unprotected products in Indonesia, including the production process for batik (textile), as well as kris (short daggers) and wayang (puppet art).

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