A sub-regional grouping that deals with collecting royalties for musicians and artistes has signalled its intention to “speed up legal action against unlicensed music users”.
According to ECCO – the Eastern Caribbean Collective Organisation for Music Rights, the society is owed over a million dollars in outstanding royalties from the electronic media – and its members want it to collect on those funds even if it means taking those in arrears to court.
The matter was raised at ECCO’s just concluded 3rd annual general meeting held in St Lucia.
ECCO reported there on the achievement of a 27 per cent growth in licensing revenue mainly from its operations in Dominica and St. Lucia.
According to a release from the society, it was able to double the distributable revenue due to members and affiliates to over $400,000.00.
Members who welcomed that development have suggested that serious efforts be made to also collect the outstanding arrears that ECCO puts at over one million dollars.
“Members also voiced great concern in several other areas including the low level of airplay of national and regional music, the continuing scourge of music piracy and the low level of awareness of intellectual property rights,” the ECCO release states.
It also quotes its members calling on the society “to seek partnerships with state institutions in the OECS such as the Ministries with responsibility for Tourism, Heritage and Creative Industries, Trade and Investment, Technology, Education, Intellectual Property and Legal Affairs to work on joint ventures to address these challenges”.
Dominica’s representative on ECCO’s eight member board of directors is economist McCarty Marie.
This is in reply to Morihei Ueshiba.
You claim that you have downloaded Rihanna, Jay-Z and others, and that no one has ever told you about copyrights. Well, the regulatory agencies usually put pressure on the Internet Service Providers (ISPs) and NOT the individual consumers as it regards copyright infringement. The ISPs in turn target the large-scale facilitators of these illegal downloads; websites such as thepiratebay.org, megaupload.com, etc. Often enough, in the US, individuals or companies who are identified as using these illegal downloads as a significant source of income are met with the FBI. So it is highly unlikely that you – as an individual downloading music for your own enjoyment – will get a letter or a threatening email… it’s just not practical or cost effective.
However, your practice of downloading illegally might not hurt the likes of Bob Marley or Adele, but illegally downloading or copying music of local artists like Triple Kay or Michele Henderson will definitely hurt their wallets. The foreign artists are backed by powerful record labels and are supported by markets with tens of millions of paying consumers. Plus, their revenue streams are diverse and include movies, TV advertisements, Broadway musicals, TV shows, live performances, ring tones, video games, online radio, traditional radio, CDs, etc. But our local artists do not have such backing, and they rely almost solely on live performances to live. In Dominica we (consumers) do not want to pay for CDs, advertisers don’t want to pay to use local artists’ songs in their ads, business owners do not want to pay to have music played in their establishment, and the list goes on and on. We need to step up and support the music that we like.
The claim that McCarthy Marie is killing local music is baseless. Who is killing local music you ask? Consumers are killing local music.
In all this I understand where ECCO is coming from cause the Artiste are indeed suffering, however I find its just a “ticklish” situation. When the Artiste speaks about, he wants to be paid for every time his song is played publicly, the media houses will just not play he/shes music. The song and the artiste then just gets unpopular..eg a very popular soca artiste in St. Lucia, his music got unpopular because he threaten the media houses not to air his performance at The National Soca competition so while watching the event on TV we saw all the other soca artiste except his, media houses were ask to go to commercials for his performance. So somebody have to lose with that process, they really need to come together so both parties have a mutual understanding…
Hey Admin, why were my comments not posted?
Mark Marie looking for all ways to stick the Dominican public. I think mister don’t care about music locally. I have more respect for people like the late Jeff Joe, Michele Henderson. I but my CD and mister still want to collect royalties because you play your own CD.
I am an artist and local musician. Royalties are how I earn a living. The nickles and dimes add up. And if everybody pays then we can survive. Not paying is what is killing local music because making music for free is unsustainable. Now because you are downloading music illegally and no one has stopped you doesn’t make it right. I make money from Guadeloupe and Martinique yet I cant collect a cent from my own people who claim to love me and my music… and in addition some still think we shouldn’t say a thing…. just starve in silence. Thanks for the support countrymen!
“calypso music held ransom” “Mccarthy crippling local music” “I never see more foolishness how a man who cannot sing, and never produce an album so intent on destroying Dominica local music industry”.
You guys have it wrong….you are apparently NOT musicians and/or composers.
This is in reply to Morihei Ueshiba.
You claim that you have downloaded Rihanna, Jay-Z and others, and that no one has ever told you about copyrights. Well, the regulatory agencies usually put pressure on the Internet Service Providers (ISPs) and NOT the individual consumers as it regards copyright infringement. The ISPs in turn target the large-scale facilitators of these illegal downloads; websites such as thepiratebay.org, megaupload.com, etc. Often enough, in the US, individuals or companies who are identified as using these illegal downloads as a significant source of income are met with the FBI. So it is highly unlikely that you – as an individual downloading music for your own enjoyment – will get a letter or a threatening email… it’s just not practical or cost effective.
However, your practice of downloading illegally might not hurt the likes of Bob Marley or Adele, but illegally downloading or copying music of local artists like Triple Kay or Michele Henderson will definitely hurt their wallets. The foreign artists are backed by powerful record labels and are supported by markets with tens of millions of paying consumers. Plus, their revenue streams are diverse and include movies, TV advertisements, Broadway musicals, TV shows, live performances, ring tones, video games, online radio, traditional radio, CDs, etc. But our local artists do not have such backing, and they rely almost solely on live performances to live. In Dominica we (consumers) do not want to pay for CDs, advertisers don’t want to pay to use local artists’ songs in their ads, business owners do not want to pay to have music played in their establishment, and the list goes on and on. We need to step up and support the music that we like.
The claim that McCarthy Marie is killing local music is baseless. Who is killing local music you ask? Consumers are killing local music.
calypso music held ransom, dead until next calypso season. stoops with marie and co. trying to make money and keep good talent down. dominica doe have ppl for that kind of thing!
Mccarthy crippling local music. The more people hear music the more exposure for the artist, the nickles and cents Mccarthy trying to collect cannot sustain the individual artist.
To counter your argument, what good is exposure to the artist if he/she isn’t getting paid for that exposure? At what point will the calypsonian or song-writer reap those rewards?
I download Rihanna, Jay Z, Adele, Michael Jackson, Whitney Houston, Damian Marley, Bob Marley, all on the internet and nobody and i mean no one ever tell me about Copy Right yet, look they shut down megaupload yet Dotcom is fighting it and he will win.
I never see more foolishness how a man who cannot sing, and never produce an album so intent on destroying Dominica local music industry.
Mister should focus on making Dominica music be heard all over the world instead he focusing on restricting people from hearing it, keep it up smart guy, keep it up.
Is he a Dominican on top of all that?