On Thursday, former President and Opposition Leader Bharrat Jagdeo disconcertingly stated his disaffection with the planned upgrading of copyright laws which was alluded to by President Granger in his recent address to Parliament.
Mr Jagdeo declared at a press conference on Thursday “We are a poor developing country. Wait until such time in the future when people can afford to pay for the copyrighted stuff. That is how I see it. It may not sound like the most enlightened position given that you have international treaties and stuff but half of those treaties don’t protect us small countries. They don’t protect our interests”.
The Opposition Leader also evinced concern for music stores and music cart operators.
“Every store that sells music now is going to have to, the way they currently do it, would have to shut those down. The guys who are doing the push cart, they can be charged too. They won’t be able to do that anymore”, Mr Jagdeo said, adding “Every single thing. It means all the television shows that we broadcast now, we will have to pay for it.”
His concern about music cart vendors would likely evoke unrestrained snickering among those who are aware of the predisposition of the former Jagdeo administration towards deals with his brand of oligarchs to the exclusion of all else and certainly the music cart vendor types. It is more likely that Mr Jagdeo is immediately rushing to the aid of the same oligarchs, some of whom have already entrenched themselves in all manner of copyright violations in the broadcast sector and who would be in immediate jeopardy once legislation is updated.
It is extraordinary that given the primacy of protection of property in the ambit of the rule of law and the framework of international trade agreements that the leader of any party here would so cavalierly adopt a position against copyright protection. One hopes that the opposition PPP will have a serious internal debate on this question and reverse the position enunciated by Mr Jagdeo.
What Mr Jagdeo has revealed through his utterances is that while in government the PPP/C had no intention of protecting intellectual property even though this matter had to have been on the front burner at any number of fora within CARICOM and in multilateral agreements that involved the EU, the US, Canada and others. In the first year of his presidency in 1999, Mr Jagdeo had said that updated copyright laws were key to the country’s development and had stated that he intended to have a draft bill, in circulation at the time, in place by the following year. This, of course, did not materialise.
This blatant disregard for copyright protection reached its zenith in October, 2012, not so long after Mr Jagdeo had left office when the PPP/C government had the temerity to issue a formal tender for the photocopying of textbooks. When questioned about the piracy entailed in such a venture, the then head of the Presidential Secretariat, Dr Roger Luncheon had infamously dismissed the concerns in the following manner: “You could be a publisher with a copyright and you could offer to sell me the book for $1. My friend is a good photocopy artist and he could sell me the book for 10 cents. All of you are going to bid but who do you think is going to get it?”
The outrage that flowed from publishing houses brought the PPP/C government to its senses very quickly even if it is the case that photocopiers of textbooks continue to thrive. At least they are not doing so on the coin of the taxpayers.
While the descriptor may be an exaggeration, when Mr Jagdeo said “We are a poor developing country” he perhaps unwittingly acknowledges the fact that under nearly 23 years of unbroken PPP/C governance, 13 years under his presidency, Guyana’s development languished and the country was unable to break out of the shackles of primary production that has today brought the sugar industry to its knees and is now resulting in all of the country’s plans being pegged completely to the oil and gas sector.
Perhaps, the most telling revelation from Mr Jagdeo’s blunder is the absence of the understanding that if Guyana does not protect copyright then nothing that belongs to it and its people can then arguably secure protection here or abroad. In one fell swoop, Mr Jagdeo has dismissed the work and labours of local authors and a whole host of creative labourers and shows no recognition that at any given point the country can be on the cusp of a dramatic flowering of these talents. In Mr Jagdeo’s thinking this does not appear possible and is dismissed out of hand. Artistes need to be given the assurance from the outset that their work will be valued and protected.
There is on the opposition benches, and particularly as Mr Jagdeo comes to terms with the reality that he can no longer be President, an inclination towards contrariness just for its sake. In the context of copyright, this can have an adverse impact on relations with other countries and undermine international commitments as for example under the Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS). Minimum standards are set out for the regulation by national governments of many forms of intellectual property. The TRIPS agreement introduced intellectual property law into the international trading system for the first time. In 2001, developing countries, concerned that developed countries were insisting on an overly narrow reading of TRIPS, triggered a round of talks that resulted in the Doha Declaration which clarifies the scope of TRIPS.
TRIPS requires World Trade Organisation members to provide copyright rights, covering content producers including performers, producers of sound recordings and broadcasting organizations among a range of others.
In July 2016, the Deputy Chief of Mission of the US Embassy Bryan Hunt had averted to the discussions that had taken place between the US and CARICOM on piracy and related matters. In an interview with Stabroek News he had said “The discussion on intellectual property and intellectual property rights and theft was a prominent part of the discussion, within the trade and investment council, we just had between the United States and CARICOM in Washington…We did in fact come to some degree of understanding of what we can do, on a technical level, to try to strengthen CARICOM’s ability to strengthen the various international agreements. Of this, TRIPS is the most prominent. The member states of CARICOM are certainly aware of the importance of acting expeditiously, in order to stop piracy and intellectual property rights theft that is happening within their borders.
“They are certainly aware of the detrimental effects it has on their own economies, their own performing arts industries, and certainly from the United States side we are prepared to provide technical assistance …and as we promised the CARICOM Secretariat, if they ever had instances where they believe that intellectual property theft was happening in the United States, we would be more than happy to investigate on their behalf and we hope that they would do the same, when things happen that violate the rights of US rights’ holders”.
Disregard for copyright is reckless, can do harm to the country’s interests and leave its artistes vulnerable.
