MY colleague Freddie Kissoon’s article in the Sunday, November 4 edition of Kaieteur News is extremely puzzling. Puzzling because he has never written anything about the creative industry , much less from a first-person comment on copyright, which is a complex economic process; a process that requires a knowledge base learned from participation as a lawyer or artist involved in copyright issues.

Freddie did imply Bharrat Jagdeo as a reference source; the thing is that former President Jagdeo was trained in the Soviet bloc. Communism has always perceived the individualism of copyright as offensive, and neither of these gentlemen was ever a proponent of copyrights in the interest of the creative community of this nation. The first six paragraphs of his column dealt with no copyright, Trademark or Patent issues.

The references to subsidies offered to their farmers by American and European governments further in the article also does not envelop copyright practices, but are subject to trade agreement arguments. The TRIPS agreement have so far evolved through several negotiations; we are already enveloped and subject to copyright restrictions from abroad. Should our manufacturing industry kick- start in the next few years, our trademark capacity to trade must be intact; the world is not waiting on us, our problem is our lack of adequate expertise in corporate trade laws.

Two books that I can recommend for study among us explorers are, ‘Protect or Plunder understanding IPRs’ by Vandana Shiva and ‘IPRs, the WTO and developing countries’, by Carlos M. Correa. Those explore the pros and cons and options, to quote Shiva “Indian medicines are far cheaper that even those in industrialised countries and other developing countries like Pakistan and Indonesia.

This is primarily because many developing countries like Pakistan have continued with the colonial 1911 Patent Act inherited from the British, which has maintained total dependence on imports with no development in indigenous capacity for production.” Again –“In 1977, the South African government also passed a law to provide access to affordable medicines by using the provisions of compulsory licensing and parallel imports. The aim was to reduce the cost of treating HIV/AIDS by 50 to 90 per cent.

With over 4 million Aids patients, the government action was a public health imperative. Yet, all the pharmaceutical giants mobilised to challenge the South African law.” South Africa changed their laws to purchase medications from countries such as Brazil and India, many of the big drug companies cut their costs to compromise. Vandana Shiva emphasises the energies towards local content, rather than the laziness we are enveloped in.

The physiology of copyright constitutes licence, contracts, franchises, sale of rights that do not involve ‘the copyright’ production rights, all based on the laws we craft. Eric Clapton did not steal “I shot the Sheriff” from Bob Marley, cover tunes work like this: you locate the publisher, serve them with proper notice and pay the statutary royalty rate. However, if the publisher has not copyrighted the song, it becomes ‘public domain’ and can be used by anyone without paying royalties.

In an interview with Bob Marley in the book “Bob Marley Reggae King of the World”, Marley was asked “I noticed when “I Shot the Sheriff” came out, I heard your tune on [the black radio station] WBLS, but on the other stations I heard Eric Clapton’s. Why do you think that was? Marley replied “Well, people don’t know how to dance reggae, them don’t know where the beat drop.” Marley also spoke in that interview about the differences between contracts and agreements. With respect to comic books and other literary works mentioned and casually inferred in the article, the broad conclusion was completely clueless and self serving.

I had in 2011 entered an MoU for development of a non-fiction graphic novel which manuscript and layout pencil pages I had begun and shelved with a NY entity. In late 2014 the contract was signed, and the book digitally submitted. Within three months I received an email asking for amendments to the contract through his agent asking for extensions that would neutralise the contract, I rejected it. By the end of the contract year the publisher had failed to publish; I sent a letter warning on the 90-day contractual extension. He proceeded by using Staples or some other copy service to runoff some copies, then placed them on Amazon.

I received via mail two of the contracted 12 copies; they were horribly done. I used a local lawyer, Leslie Sobers, to convey my concerns; the books were withdrawn from Amazon. In due course the contract was cancelled and my work and copyright certificate are intact. I had other experiences that instructed me on the importance of copyright and an understanding of contracts. This lobby against copyright is not fuelled by knowledge of what it entails, but rather, contempt for the thousands of Guyana’s creative persons from a constituency with an aversion to paying people they would prefer to rob, who will be empowered and employed in cultural industries, from Science to the Arts.

Barry Braithwaite