Too much talk about Caribbean music says Entertainment lawyer

lloydstanbury


There has been quite a bit of talk over the past few years about the need to grow and better structure the Caribbean music industry. While open discussions and lobbying is a necessary part of the development process, it is my view that way too much emphasis has been placed on talk, meetings and fact finding overseas missions, while the positive actions being taken by qualified industry experts tend to either go un-noticed or are the subject of criticism.

In my view the work being done by the only legitimate Caribbean regional music industry entity Caribbean Copyright Link (CCL) is a perfect demonstration of my point. The CCLwas formed to represent the collective global copyright and neighbouring rights interests of national societies serving Caribbean songwriters, music publishers, producers, and performers. The CCL membership includes the Jamaica Association of Composers, Authors and Publishers (JACAP), the Copyright Collection Organization of Trinidad and Tobago (COTT), the Copyright Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers (COSCAP) in Barbados, and the Eastern Caribbean Copyright Organization (ECCO). The CCL has for many years been working very closely with international intellectual property rights organizations such as the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), the International Federation of the Phongraphic Industry (IFPI) and the International Confederation of Authors and Composers Societies (CISAC).

The CCL has worked tirelessly in recent years in an effort to improve regional and global conditions for rights administration and royalty collection, and has also been providing statistics with regard to the trends in national and regional music royalty collections. I do recall receiving information circulated by the CCL a few years back pointing to the negative trends in regional royalty collections and the disparity between royalty inflows and outflows as between the Caribbean and the rest of the world.

The CCL must also be commended for its very active role in seeking to identify and acquire appropriate technology for the use of its member organizations in the music use monitoring process. Members of the CCL executive have also been actively participating in relevant research and workshop training for the benefit of music rights holders and users in the region.

The businesses of music, entertainment, and the cultural industries in general have now become fashionable in the Caribbean. This has resulted in the birth and announcement of a number of new private regional initiatives that purport to deal with the structured development of the businesses of music and entertainment at the regional level. While these private initiatives are welcomed and should definitely be encouraged, it is also necessary that we recognize and work with existing regional expertise, such as that developed through the work being done by the CCL.

The business of music is still about the commercial exploitation of various aspects of intellectual property rights, as well as the rendering of performance and production services. It is therefore absolutely necessary that these new initiatives are guided by the lessons learned and experience gained by entities such as the CCL and others that have a proven track record in intellectual property rights administration and related performance and production services arrangements.

I was inspired to write this note after reading two reports in Jamaican daily newspapers about trends in the global music trade as these relate to Jamaican and Caribbean music.

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Author Profile

lloydstanbury
I am an entertainment attorney and music business consultant with over 25 years experience in areas such as intellectual property law, entertainment contracts, event planning and artist management. My activities include international recording, music publishing, performance and media contract negotiations, lecture presentations and arts and entertainment industry research. Co-founder and former vice-chairman of Grove Broadcasting Company/IRIE FM, the world

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