Dear Editor,
Most of us in the Caribbean harbour a rather romantic vision of piracy. The fourth sequel in the ‘Pirates of the Caribbean’ series would have inevitably helped to burnish its image as a rough, brutish but Robin Hood-type endeavour. Blackbeard (Edward Teach), Le Clerc and Henry Morgan contributed as much to putting the Caribbean (Tortuga and Port Royal in particular) on the map as did sugar and slavery especially between the 1650s and 1720s. However, even if the current scourge of piracy on our coast and rivers would let us, we should never forget that these adherents of the skull and crossbones were some of the most destructive persons ever to set sail.
Piracy then and now is fuelled by lawlessness. The discussion of the photocopying of textbooks is couched in the lexicon of piracy, but piracy in this formulation can only be alluring to those ill-informed about its essentials.
In the wake of revelations about the illegal issuing of invitations to tender for the photocopying of school textbooks the PPP regime offered some rather silly and cynical explanations in early September. The UN saga demonstrates just how far the success of this minority regime in bullying and cowing the local populace has made it arrogant and brazen. It also shows the extent to which it believes its own fabricated rhetoric. Most other people accept FDR’s quip that “repetition does not transform a lie into a truth,” but it would appear that the regime believes the aphorism, “the visionary lies to himself, the liar only to others“!
In one of the more informed commentaries Mr Rajenrda Rampersaud, a contributor to your letter column, complained that, “The controversial piracy of textbooks issue that dominated the headlines in the past weeks following the rather intemperate statement by a senior government official fizzled out after much heat with no light at the end of the discourse.” Many of the relevant issues such as the options open to the Government to seek a waiver, or the fact that international legal obligations cannot simply be ignored at a Government’s own convenience, have already been fully ventilated.
I agree with many of the arguments presented, including those by Mr Rampersaud and offer some clarifications as well as comments on the international and economic dimension. The law pertaining to photocopying is part of a regime to protect the rights of authors, writers and innovators. In 1709 the UK passed the first copyright law to enable writers of books and cartographers, to obtain an income from the printing, copying and dissemination of such documents over some defined time period. Three intellectual property rights (IPR) – copyright and neighbouring rights, patents and trademarks – are now protected internationally. These rights in turn are linked to the broader questions of arrangements for encouraging new works, the invention of new processes, services and products as well as technology transfer and funding research and investment. Mr Rampersaud observed that these issues lie at the heart of development and development policy, and has correctly concluded that whatever flaws the, by now complex, regime may have, countries such as Guyana would be worse off without it. I concur with his view.
Initially, the law worked reasonably well and coverage widened to include music (1831). The industrial revolution brought an unprecedented upsurge in mechanical innovations and the regime had of necessity to become more complex. Subsequently, the green revolution and advances in bio-technology have put further pressure on it.
The battle over piracy is not restricted to the areas which we used to call ‘white magic.’ There have also been well publicized cases involving theft of a variety of products including traditional technologies, plant varieties, medicines, etc, from developing states, as pointed out by Rampersaud. Guyana has interests to protect in such areas because our scientists have developed sugar cane and rice varieties, for
example, over the years. There is also the grievous case of Demerara sugar, for which we need to win registration under the Geographical Indications regime which governs what may be called champagne, for example.
We, for all of those reasons, are members of WIPO and the treaties administered by that body.
As with textbooks, there has been a furore over the copying and trading of music, as old as the industry itself starting with the phonograph, reel-to-reel tapes in the 1950s, reaching a pitch with cassettes in the 1970s and a crisis over the advent of the downloading of music via Napster. In fact, the entertainment industry has been one of the main beneficiaries of the penal sanctions for breaking copyright laws, except in Guyana.
And yet this is an area in which the PPP regime claims it has an interest in promoting as part of its tourism drive. In fact, Guyana has spawned several frontline pop songwriters and arrangers, most of whom reside abroad, unacknowledged by this Government and indeed, by the community from which they sprang. These artistes include Andrea Martin, who has written songs for En Vogue, Loris Holland (a Grammy and Emmy winner in his own right) who has written for the Fugees and Celine Dion. There is also songwriter, Joylon Skinner (of Universal Records, Billie Ocean, Freddie Jackson & Will Downing) who penned the R&B hit ‘I wanna know.’ The most renowned of our performers includes, of course, Eddy Grant and there are also Guyanese roots to some of the world’s foremost pop singers such as Rihanna, Leona Lewis and, Deborah Cox (the latter boasts a single which spent a record 14 weeks atop the Billboard R&B charts).
In spite of this and notwithstanding the law, musicians have no meaningful and effective remedy against piracy in Guyana because the law is not enforced. In fact, the PPP Government and many private businessmen including PPP cronies, see the photocopying of books and burning of CDs not as a discouragement to writing, songwriting and performance but a legitimate opportunity for those who are seeking to make money.
At the same time, the minority regime has been trying to court the votes of the young Guyanese and African Guyanese in particular, by providing financial support for local, and mostly foreign, pop musicians to perform in Guyana.
My closest friends know that I am not embarrassed to admit that I am in love with no less than three young ladies. Sadly, Timeka Marshall (recent hit ‘Whining pro’), Melanie Fiona, a Grammy nominee for the best female R&B vocal) and Shelly G (‘Just a text’), do not yet know of my plight! These young performers and songwriters have excellent prospects for success and a less lawless country would be the best thing policymakers could do for them. If the assistance provided by the PPP Government to the music promoters, such as Hits and Jams, is to amount to more than cynical political exploitation, complementary measures are needed to ensure that the writers and performers’ material, their intellectual property, is protected. Contracting and paying businesses to copy their material is not consistent with protecting their interests. In the face of such lawlessness and contradictions most performers migrate. The country loses income from the export of services of the music and entertainment industries – income from songwriting, musical performances and tourism.
In other words, government sponsored photocopying and breaches of the copyright principle have wide implications even for the Government’s other policies.
Guyana is not simply bound by some arcane 1950s laws. Both the PNC and PPP Governments have signed agreements binding us to respect and protect copyright. The problem of the cost of textbooks in general and school books in particular has been addressed at the international level. Over the last 20 years there have been quite significant reforms of the regime often prompted by developing countries.
The option of printing the book locally under an arrangement with the holders of the copyright has been mentioned in the earlier exchanges. Although the PPP regime has made no attempt to explore and exploit this option, they have gone to complain to the UN!
A more appropriate response would have been to arrange to have as many of the needed textbooks as possible written locally. Although a country as small as Guyana cannot replace all the required books in this way, it can replace many. Writing and printing the books locally has the advantage of making them more relevant in terms of context and it would generate more high level skills, employment and income, through a multiplier effect.
In more responsible and less lawless jurisdictions governments and their populaces debate the content of locally written textbooks. Only last week the Economist (Oct 13 2012) concluded from a review of the debates that:
“What goes into school textbooks—and, even more, what is left out—spurs concern and controversy all over the world… And so it should. Few, if any, instruments shape national culture more powerfully than the materials used in schools. Textbooks are not only among the first books most people encounter; in many places they are, along with religious texts, almost the only books they encounter.“
It may come as a surprise to many readers to know that in recognition of this reality a Textbook Unit was established in the Ministry of Education Textbook in the 1970s. Mrs Patty Ellis, a Guyana scholar and the late wife of the Central Bank’s former Deputy Governor, Mr Clarence Ellis, was a member of, and writer in, that unit. Both my former colleagues, the late Prof Leslie Cummings and the Deryck Bernard of UG, wrote geography texts used in our schools. Furthermore, many English textbooks for primary and nursery schools have been written by Caribbean, including Guyanese, writers. Elsewhere in the region therefore, with development-oriented governments such as T&T and Jamaica, which has Ian Randle Press, this arrangement is well entrenched.
Another option is to develop and implement meaningful policies on intellectual property and innovation capacity along with clear, complementary policies including:
a. the development of human capital and entrepreneurial education
b. investment in research and development (R&D)
c. improvement of the environment for doing business. OECD
More specifically in relation to ‘c’ above, the OECD has recommended that policy focus on the following four areas: the macro-environment, resources, legal and institutional, and fiscal conditions (ie taxation). Improved IPR protection and opportunities for industry-university collaboration, for example, send strong positive signals to private firms and can stimulate higher export turnover.
In summary, consistent and comprehensive policies are required to help solve the unaffordable textbook issue. The photocopying of books helps some persons in the short term. In the long term it helps not the pupils of poor households but the businesses to whom the illegal contracts are awarded. At the end of the pupils’ school lives such jobs as may be found in an efficient printing industry would not be available to the school leavers. The industry would have been destroyed by the photocopiers. We have no better example of the pernicious impact of this type of government policy than the policy-induced demise of the once mighty ship-builders, GNEC (Sprostons) and the disappearance of its workshops and foundries from GT, Bartica and New Amsterdam.
Finally, I turn to the question of international agreements and the future of the law on these issues of copyright. The Cariforum /European Union (CF/EU) Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA), ratified in May of this year after much hype and controversy by Guyana, is the most recent and the most important international trade agreement signed by Guyana and the CF States in this generation.
Under this EPA agreement, the CF governments agreed to extensive protection of copyrights, trademarks, geographical indications, industrial design, patents, plant varieties and genetic resources. In addition, they agreed on the regional management and enforcement of IPRs and penalty payments in case of infringements. These obligations are set out in Art 143 (copyright and related rights) through to 150 (Genetic resources, traditional knowledge and folklore). Incidentally, Mr Jagdeo never listed adherence to copyright laws among the unacceptable obligations which had been forced down Caribbean throats by the EU.
These obligations, which come into effect on January 1, 2014 (2021 in the case of Haiti, an LDC), build on the pre-existing obligations signed under Cotonou (2000) and the WTO. Under the WTO TRIPS (Trade Related Intellectual Property Rights) Agreement Guyana had already agreed to take on the substantial Berne obligations – minimum protection standards for copyright et al and the protection of new varieties of plants. Art 143 therefore really addresses copyright in the digital environment that has evolved in the last 18 years subsequent to the conclusion of the Marrakesh Agreement in 1994.
The regional governments’ negotiating instructions to the CF College of Negotiators included two broad goals: encourage investment that is environment-friendly and, those that would enhance competitiveness and diversification through innovation.
In return for implementing the IPR obligations, therefore, the CF states requested, and the EU agreed to, institutional and sector specific support to enhance our capacity to be an innovative regional economy. In this regard, Article 150 (3) sought to commit the parties to implementation of patent legislation and the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) in a mutually supportive way. As part of such support, the EU states undertook, under Art 134, to provide us with access to their innovation support programmes. We in turn are to consider the establishment of innovation systems and innovation networks at the national and regional levels. The region also committed itself to harmonizing its IPR laws. Most importantly for Guyana, negotiations on the establishment and protection of our products and services under geographical indications are due to commence no later than 2014.
The importance of our international legal obligations has therefore always been clear and has been reinforced in the EPA agreement ratified just this year. Having committed itself to the agreement, Guyana should be sparing no effort to draw on the benefits of the agreement as a matter of urgency. We should prepare our case for GIs, including Demerara sugar, and, monitor the programmes which should be included in the Compendium of European Union Innovation Support on which the region could draw. Instead of doing the obvious, the PPP Government has not only continued its policy of piracy, lawlessness and cronyism but has embarrassingly sought the endorsement of the UN for its illegal efforts.
In the past, this PPP regime has often been able to secure exemption from its obligations by resorting to a ‘beg pardon‘ culture – feigning ignorance, lack of capacity, fault of a previous government, etc. These features along with discrimination and a failure to pursue drug traffickers lie at the heart of the PPP regime’s development policy. They will not give it up willingly. This is however too hot an international issue for such a strategy to remain acceptable or effective.
Conclusion
The explanations and actions of the GoG in relation to the schoolbook controversy are indefensible, if not dangerous, especially because they are part of a de facto and unannounced strategy of putting the interest of cronies above the national interest. In addition to breaching local laws and international agreements, they conflict with far-from-adequate announced policies on development, music, entertainment, tourism and much else. As with heroic acts in the heyday of maritime piracy, individual elements may appear alluring, but taken together these policies are destructive and have contributed to the obvious de-skilling and de-industrialisation Guyana has experienced in this the 3rd millennium.
Yours faithfully,
Carl B Greenidge
