Rhon­dor Dowlat

Video­g­ra­phers, pho­tog­ra­phers, broad­cast­ers and so­cial me­dia users (in­clud­ing mem­bers of the pub­lic) who in­tend to cap­ture any as­pect of work of mas use in any form of com­mer­cial in­tent di­rect­ly or in­di­rect­ly with­out prop­er ac­cred­i­ta­tion for this year’s Car­ni­val can face a hefty fine of $250,000 or a ten-year im­pris­on­ment.

This was the warn­ing sent yes­ter­day dur­ing a me­dia con­fer­ence by pres­i­dent of the T&T Copy­right Col­lec­tion Or­gan­i­sa­tion Dr Vi­jay Ram­lal.

The me­dia con­fer­ence was held at the Queen’s Park Sa­van­nah. Al­so, present was pres­i­dent of the T&T Car­ni­val Bands As­so­ci­a­tion (TTC­BA) Ger­ard Weekes.

Ram­lal ex­plained that for many years there has been three dis­tinct ar­eas of In­tel­lec­tu­al Prop­er­ty Pro­tec­tion: Copy­right, La­belling right and works of mas.

Weekes said over the years there has been a lot of dis­re­spect for this as­pect of copy­right and added that the in­ten­tion of the TTC­BA from this year on is to right the wrong.

He said, “Mem­bers of the mas fra­ter­ni­ty have not been able to ben­e­fit from copy­right is­sues that plague the fra­ter­ni­ty. For too long it has been a sit­u­a­tion where we see all of our art­work, de­signs be­ing pro­duced in mag­a­zines and be­ing pho­tographed and streamed and the stake­hold­ers or the mas prac­ti­tion­ers have not been ben­e­fit­ting.”

“The TTOC is the on­ly au­tho­rised body in T&T ca­pa­ble of deal­ing with Works of Mas and col­lect­ing the rights for same. It is im­por­tant for mem­bers of the pub­lic both for­eign and lo­cal who are com­ing of have the in­ten­tions of cap­tur­ing any form of pho­tog­ra­phy, videog­ra­phy doc­u­men­tary get ac­cred­it­ed be­come ac­cred­it­ed so we can as­sist in hav­ing mas prac­ti­tion­ers ben­e­fit­ting,” he added.

Ram­lal said there is a se­ri­ous in­fringe­ment of rights and added that he is hop­ing for en­force­ment from this year.

Ram­lal al­so used the op­por­tu­ni­ty to dis­close that the Na­tion­al Car­ni­val Com­mis­sion (NCC) still owes them over $475,000 from last year’s sea­son.

Side Bar

The De­f­i­n­i­tion of “Works of Mas” Un­der the Copy­right Act. 82:80

A “Work of Mas” is an orig­i­nal pro­duc­tion in­tend­ed to be per­formed by a per­son or group of per­sons in which an artis­tic work in the form of an adorn­ment or im­age pre­sent­ed by the per­son or per­sons, is the pri­ma­ry el­e­ment of the pro­duc­tion and which such adorn­ment or im­age may be ac­com­pa­nied by words, mu­sic, chore­og­ra­phy or oth­er works, re­gard­less of whether the pro­duc­tion is in­tend­ed to be per­formed on stage, plat­form, street or oth­er venue.

Stat­ed

This Act shall al­so ap­ply to Works made, Per­for­mances giv­en, Sound Record­ings made and Broad­casts first trans­mit­ted be­fore the date of the com­ing in­to force of this Act, Copy­right 1985.

“Works of Mas” there­fore com­pris­es:

The per­former in the per­for­mance (The Mas­quer­ad­er/Live Per­former)

Au­thor/Com­pos­er (Mu­sic)

The De­sign­er/The pro­duc­er

The Band­leader – as the own­er of the en­tire pro­duc­tion

Who are TTCO’s mem­bers un­der “Works of Mas”?

300 mem­bers of the NCDF (Lega­cy, Tribe, Spice, Fan­ta­sy, Is­land Peo­ple etc.) as well as, in­di­vid­ual band­lead­ers, de­sign­ers and pro­duc­ers.

Who are some of the oth­er or­gan­i­sa­tions that must sign in­to TTCO un­der “Works of Mas”?

NCC, NC­BA, Pantrin­ba­go, TU­CO, Broad­cast­ers/Tele­vi­sion Sta­tions, Com­mer­cial Busi­ness­es, Bor­ough Cor­po­ra­tions, Print/Pro­duc­ers of Mag­a­zines, De­sign­ers/De­sign House, Movie Hous­es/Cin­e­mas.