Keeping pirates at bay

Ella Andell, music producer and singer, took the fight against the music pirates to the streets of Port-of-Spain  recently, and came away a disappointed woman.

“I was very disappointed with the physical and visual support from the artistes at the motorcade.  I personally went around to numerous tents to invite people but many of them did not turn up,” she lamented.  Local music artistes are seeing red this Carnival season as they continue to fight a losing battle against music pirates —the cause of millions of dollars of profit losses annually.

According to Copyright Organisation of TT (COTT) CEO, Allison Demas, street piracy is the most visible form of piracy in TT presently, noting too that internet piracy is not a myth. “There is a lot of local music on the net which is not licensed. But by and large, street piracy is the major problem.”  Andell stressed that the solution to the problem of piracy lay in educating the public. Andell, who herself is  an executive music producer and a member of COTT,  was instrumental in hosting an anti-piracy rally through the streets of POS on Friday 14 February in an attempt to educate the public on the illegality of piracy. It is quite obvious, she said in an interview last week, that the artistes and executive producers can’t enjoy the revenues because the public is not educated as to the meaning of intellectual property.

“There is this cheaper market with a cheaper product and people take it not knowing that it won’t last.” “The public loves us, but they don’t understand that by supporting the pirates, the artistes are unable to live from what they produce,” she said. Andell, who recently released her newest album “Spirit Dancer”, is of the view that the present attempts by COTT and local law enforcement to alleviate the problem of piracy were practical.  However, she called on the artistes and executives producers to take a stand against the problem themselves. Demas says, “We not only have to look at it in terms of piracy in TT, but rather in the Caribbean diasporic market, as well as in places like New York, Brooklyn, Miami and Washington DC where the actual volumes far exceed what we are experiencing here on our streets,” she added.

The Annual Report and accounts of COTT for 2001 revealed that the income from Performing Rights amounted to $5,365,927, which was 22 percent less than the $5,488,456 received for Performing Rights in the year 2000. The net surplus from Performing and Recording Rights available for distribution in 2001 amounted to $3,011,525. Jay Berman, Chairman and CEO of the International Federation on Phonographic industry (IFPI), stressed that piracy was the greatest threat facing the music industry today. “The economic losses due to piracy are enormous,” Berman stated in a publication, “and are felt throughout the music value chain.”

Distribution to local right owners stood at $1,011,135 with $1,911,390 going to foreign rights owners.  Simple piracy refers to the unauthorised duplication of an original record for commercial gain without the consent of the rights owner. Counterfeits are copied and packaged to resemble the original as closely as possible, while Bootlegs are unauthorised recordings of live or broadcast performances. “The victims include the artistes whose creativity gets no reward; governments who lose hundreds of millions of tax revenue dollars, economies which are deprived of new investment, consumers who get less diversity and less choice and record producers who are forced to reduce their artistes’ roster because it is impossible to compete against theft,” he stated.

The IFPI characterises piracy as the deliberate infringement of copyright on a commercial scale. In relation to the music industry, it refers to unauthorised copying and in this context falls into three categories: simple piracy, counterfeits and bootlegs. Berman expressed his view that piracy nurtured organised crime since very often the money which is paid for pirated CD’s is channelled into the drug trade, money laundering or other forms of serious organised criminal activity. Piracy, he went on, can also act as a brake on investment growth and jobs. “In today’s global economy, intellectual property is a motor of economic growth,” he maintained, stressing that “governments cannot permit this critical asset to be devalued by piracy.”

In the year 2001, the global pirate music market totaled 1.9 billion units which means that almost 40 percent of all CD’s and cassettes sold worldwide were pirated copies. In TT, the entertainment industry ranks sixth in the economy in terms of foreign exchange earnings, with Carnival raking in the most money, followed closely by overseas live performances by local artistes and merchandise sales. These comprise steelband instruments, records and CD’s among other things. According to Demas, there are a number of factors which contribute to the increase in incidents of music piracy. However, the lack of public awareness of the situation far outweigh the others. Piracy has been described as a “sophisticated industry which defies easy surveillance and detection. One expert went as far as to note that there is an air of romanticism associated with music pirates which prevents some people from realising that they are actually criminals whose actions affect a wide cross-section of people.

“The activities of these organisations include the reporting of sales figures,” Demas revealed. “However, this is not the case in TT, which does not have its own recording industry. So this is a problem.” Additionally, Demas noted, COTT is not an enforcement agency. Therefore, it does not have the power to arrest perpetrators or seize equipment. This, she said, is the role of police and customs. “We really act as a facilitator and because we realise that piracy is an issue, we are certainly willing to assist the police in their enforcement efforts.” The Copyright Act of 1997 states that anyone found guilty of infringement of the law is liable to a maximum sentence of ten years imprisonment and a fine of $100,000. However, there have been complaints that the Act is of little use, since even the police seem unfamiliar with the law. Still, COTT presses on undaunted, dreaming of the day when artistes will receive their just dues. Demas revealed that COTT has started an anti-piracy campaign under the banner: “Buy the music without stealing the music... that means don’t buy from music pirates.”

It has also established an anti-piracy hotline (624-COTT) and is presently running advertisements in the daily newspapers.  They are seeking sponsorship from various funding agencies to have an ongoing campaign throughout the year.