ECCO urges more hotel properties and music users to seek cpyright clearance

ECCO LogoThe Management of the Eastern Caribbean Collective Organisation for Music Rights want more hotel properties and all music users in Grenada to follow the example of Sandals La Source and seek copyright clearance when using music for public performance.

Following negotiations, Sandals La Source which began operation in December 2013 became the first hotel to obtain clearance from ECCO. “We are very, very pleased that the management of Sandals La Source understands our work and complied with Grenada Copyright legislation in accordance with standard practice. This is a great moved and it’s our hope that the management of other Hotels as well as owners of businesses within the hospitality sector which use music will comply with the law,” said Steve Etienne, ECCO’s General Manager.

Since ECCO became the registered Collective Management Organisation for the Eastern Caribbean in 2009, it has engaged a wide cross section of music users including the Grenada Hotel and Tourism Association, Radio stations and Promoters in discussion to obtain copyright clearance for Public Performance but compliance is very minuscule.

“We at ECCO prefer to reach amicable solutions with users than to take the route of the Justice system but in Grenada we have had to resort to the Court to resolve a few matters,” Etienne said. Therefore, it’s against this background that ECCO intends to file legal action against leading music users including hoteliers and media houses across the OECS,, including Dominica as was recently done by the Jamaica Association of Authors Composers and Publishers.  That Society recently took several media houses before the Supreme Court of Jamaica on charges of copyright infringement .These actions are in accordance with a policy decision by the Board of Directors of the Association of Caribbean Copyright Societies to step up litigation against recalcitrant music users across the Caribbean..

“By obtaining copyright clearance, the Sandals La Source management is respecting the work of those we represent within the creative industry sector and they need to be applauded for such a positive corporate responsibility in Grenada,” he adds.

The Eastern Caribbean Collective Organisation for Music Rights (ECCO) Inc. is a society of writers & publishers of music. Through reciprocal agreements with Collective Management Organisations (CMOs), throughout the world (also called ‘societies’), ECCO represents and can license virtually the whole worldwide repertoire of copyright music for public performance, broadcast, cable transmission, online and mobile use. In addition ECCO will also license mechanical reproduction on behalf of writer and publisher members and is planning a perform a similar tasks for the related rights of producers and performers of sound recordings with respect to the right of equitable remuneration when recordings are used in broadcasts and/or public performances directly or indirectly.

For more Information Please contact: ECCO’s Chairman Mc Carthy MARIE at 767 6168000 or ECCO General Manager in St. Lucia at 17584841536

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