If accepted, they will continue to bind us to poverty
THE legal resurrection of our antiquated copyright laws, so opposed by our Opposition with a barrage of apocalyptical propaganda directed at this liberating legislation, especially for the talented in their thousands, must now be addressed condignly. The challenge is to educate ourselves so we can educate others to whom this legal process is not clarified, but are relevant to, who can easily become victims of myths that if accepted will continue to enslave them and us to poverty; never realising our gifted potential and the legal right to inherit the fruits of our works, always servants to the political and their merchant sycophants continuously.
From the opposition, there is the label of copyright as a bourgeois process, rather than a protection from the relentless exploitation of our hard work by a lazy and dishonest clique who lack the will to create, develop and tirelessly mature ideas and products that should reward the creator favourably. Instead, they hide their true temerity for insincerity behind the mantras of dead communism as practised rather than it was preached; practised in its true self as the abominable state of hopeless exploitation.
We must turn to history for references, in the advent of Communism. As a proposed theory for mass liberation, it was a progressive light under the yoke of monarchies supported by generations of exploited peasants, serfs and slaves. In fact, the first revolution for the rights of man emerged with the French revolution, only to be betrayed by the court ritual mesmerised by Napoleon. Orthodox Russia followed in 1917 and Communism became the anti-colonial Knight post-WWII. Hitler had brought the condensed bigotry of the west to a climax. Both Russia and China abandoned their previous history and the concept of the human spirit, to create their new Communist states, but soon enough George Orwell’s ‘Animal Farm’ was fulfilled, human rights including copyright, were rejected by communism, thus this little history becomes relevant, and Communist leaders became leaders for life.
Their creative talents fled. Musicians, artists, writers, philosophers, entire ballet groups defected. Today, no communist country is a cultural centre the way Jamaica is. Guyana has the talents and potential, but it remains strangled. Putin is the epitome of the Russian Tsar, reputed to be one of the richest men on earth but owns no business. We have seen how that happened here with his political mimic men, great at public scheming towards self-enrichment, but low on holistic initiatives, using the close of office Oil Blocks sale scandal as
The swindle heaped upon the minds of Guyanese is that we should think ourselves lucky that we have cheap pirated goods that breakup quickly; rip-offs of everything familiar, including medications. And they argue that this dangerous exploitation and money laundering scheme must continue because copyright is going to make everything too expensive. It’s foolish because we can always purchase quality medications and items from countries in the Commonwealth and South America that offer such items. The crux of the matter is that many in the established business community organisations think that it is in their best interests to keep the potential of the small, cottage and cultural industries contained, allowing their own expansion to go unchallenged.
We need copyright protection to be able to attract collaborations that will enhance our talented businesses. Like our leatherwork producers who need resources to make their products competitive across markets that exist beyond Guyana that will migrate here, as long as we remain envisioned as mere vender retail bazaar type businesses, our cosmetic and gold jewellery designers remain fettered to isolation because of parasitical predators next door, without any protection. Copyright will encourage enough Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) allowing us, where it’s now impossible, to attract collaborations between cultural industries and corporate entities in areas that talents exist.
The attitude to not widen ignored new niche areas is simply because there are no endorsed colonial templates inherited. Yes, comfort zone thinking prohibits development. FDI will not come to any country that is not protected by copyright protection and enforcement. Both of the anti-copyright former communist giants, Russia and China have signed on to one or the other of the copyright laws and have evolved in these areas, but with their vast populations and military might they are still not major trademark holders and still not equivalent to their population in their cultural presence worldwide, though they are tediously developing IT and AI capacity, for competitive purposes with the west that cannot be explored in this article. 
Comfort Zones are usually barren places, the purgatory of they who have surrendered their minds, anchor their consciousness into the manufactured hopelessness distributed to them by modern economic slave masters. Once you listen but fail to explore for yourself, then you are bound to self defeatism and encouraged to be a permanent cry baby, about “who ain’t doing fuh yuh and who sorry fuh yuh”. “They don’t have copyright messengers” are always people who have no particular talents but abundant glib, flaunt a ready smile and have secret investments that pirate and underpay talented people. Recently, I spoke to a young singer and songwriter who told me a bizarre story about his dealings with a West Ruimveldt music management act. I moved out of that area some 30 years ago. I don’t know of these folks. The last thing I remember him telling me is that he was coerced to sign his royalties over to this female. I told him that was insane, royalty is exclusively yours, but how else would he know? Funds that are channelled for arts development by institutions including external banks are placed in the custodianship of cliques who know nothing nor careless about the arts. It’s like throwing water on duck back. There is no programme developed by the state business or cultural authorities, they just don’t have the kind of people to intercede with the specialist information or experience necessary to teach the protective business awareness necessary to enhance the lives of creative people who don’t know, though there are a small legal group of people, fact is, I only know of one in legal affairs who is aware, but underused in this area.
One of the frivolous arguments in the campaign against copyright is that it will affect the less than a hundred pirate music carts and music places about Georgetown, causing loss of employment. It’s stupid and directed at idiots. I travel mostly by minibus and many of them today use flash drives and smartphones to provide music. Where the loss of employment will occur is if the creative areas are not empowered, they will migrate.
It is estimated that in the next 15-20 years Artificial Intelligence (AI) systems will affect some 40 percent of global employment. The Arts are somewhat exempt from these systems. In the same way that the last government and its union were aware that a decisive decline was evident for Sugar, received a subvention and they adopted a set of retarded mechanisms like the implementation of the 16 percent VAT to subsidise rather than liberate its dependents through proactive methods.
Likewise in the area of Cultural Industries (CI) and copyright legislation a similar challenge rests. With global changes determining what is inevitable, only with this national campaign, positive CI development will only come from the APNU-Coalition. The attitude of the opposition is that the Arts are not composed and neither can they be controlled as their constituency. November 5, 2018 a Forum outline on the literary arts (that enveloped all Arts) was organised and conducted by academics, Cultural Industry practitioners, government representatives and powerful friendly International Organisations at the Theatre Guild, with the positive lean of a petition to parliament for a one percent of Oil revenues for the development of the Arts and related Industries to be managed by suitable personnel. Guyana will not remain the cultural laughing stock of the Caribbean, we must ensure that. Aluta Continua.
