ATTRIBUTION AND ROYALITES

Groundins

By: Charles H.E.Campbell

Music is the life-blood of most social events. Musicians and artistes create and produce music for all occasions from birth to death from war to peace, for rites celebrating birthdays, romance and thanksgiving services for our dear departed ones.

Most of our religious, secular, national and climatic seasons and holidays, such as Christmas, Easter, Carnival and Independence are commemorated by, and with music. For these reasons, music has become an integral feature of the majority of businesses that provide a space for social interaction and relaxation. The electronic media relies heavily on music as a large component of its daily programming.

Recognizing the important value of all forms of music in giving our life's inner peace, joy and fulfillment, over the years international convention has been established to provide the creators of music with reasonable recompense for their works.

These avenues of income include fees for live performances and appearances, as well as income from the sales of their musical products and merchandise.

In recent times, modern technology and the current worldwide recession have conspired to reduce income earned by artistes from these two main income streams. While the technological revolution has allowed consumers easier and timely access to musical works of their favoured artistes and musical groups, it has simultaneously reduced the artistes' income from physical sales of their products. Secondly, the frequency of live events has a decrease globally.

There is a third source of income however, in which Jamaica is guilty of lagging behind much of the rest of the world. In order for us to preserve Jamaica's rich musical legacy and save the music for the future, we must make positive changes towards reasserting and respecting the legal rights of artistes, with respect to attribution and royalties for musical works which are used in public places and by the mass media.

In practical terms, what this means is that the operators of nightclubs, restaurants, bars, hotels, radio and television stations, including cable companies and networks , sound systems operators, promoters of live events including concerts, stages shows, dances, barbecues and even fundraising events for charity purposes must begin to take seriously and honour their legal obligations to register with, and pay the appropriate fees to, our local collection agencies -- Jamaica Association of Composers Authors and Publishers (JACAP) and Jamaica Music Society (JAMMS) which protect mainly the interests of our producers.

In so doing, Jamaica will improve its commitments under international conventions and more importantly will provide the practitioners with the means and motivation to continue to produce the type and quality of musical works for which we are the envy of the world.

Email: che.campbell@gmail.com
or
Read at: http://www.jamaicaobserver.com/entertainment/Attribution-and-royalties_11271897and-royalties_11271897