A re­cent­ly-signed mem­o­ran­dum of un­der­stand­ing (MOU) is ex­pect­ed to con­tribute to a greater ev­i­dence-based dis­tri­b­u­tion of roy­al­ties for Car­ni­val 2018.

The MOU be­tween the Copy­right Mu­sic Or­gan­i­sa­tion of Trinidad and To­ba­go (COTT) and the Vol­un­teer Cen­tre of T&T (VCTT) was signed on Fri­day at the COTT Head Of­fice, Aber­crom­by Street, Port-of-Spain.

Over the next few weeks, vol­un­teers will be en­gaged to sup­port mu­sic log­ging at over 150 events dur­ing the Car­ni­val sea­son. The da­ta they gath­er will be used to cal­cu­late copy­right roy­al­ties for COTT mem­bers.

“COTT is a col­lec­tive man­age­ment or­gan­i­sa­tion that dis­trib­utes copy­right roy­al­ties to our mem­bers—mu­sic au­thors, com­posers and pub­lish­ers. We re­ly on da­ta to dis­trib­ute these roy­al­ties ac­cu­rate­ly and fair­ly to our mem­bers,” said Ayan­na Bel­grave-Lewis, CEO at COTT.

“Dur­ing the Car­ni­val sea­son, there is so much da­ta with re­gard to mu­sic. In the past, we re­lied on staff mem­bers to col­lect this. This year, we have cho­sen to in­crease our scope and close a few gaps by in­clud­ing vol­un­teers. This part­ner­ship with the VCTT will en­sure that we have suf­fi­cient da­ta which will make our dis­tri­b­u­tion more re­li­able and ac­cu­rate.”

Giselle Mendez, chief vol­un­teer of the VCTT ex­pressed ea­ger­ness about this lat­est part­ner­ship.

“This is cer­tain­ly a unique and in­ter­est­ing ad­di­tion to our data­base of op­por­tu­ni­ties. It is ide­al for any­one with an ear for mu­sic who is pas­sion­ate about sup­port­ing the arts, cul­ture and Car­ni­val.

“Each in­di­vid­ual who steps up to vol­un­teer en­sures that au­thors, com­posers and pub­lish­ers can get a fair share of earn­ings dur­ing this sea­son. Vol­un­teers, in turn, are trained and gain a deep­er in­sight in­to the com­mer­cial side of the mu­sic busi­ness,” said Mendez.

David Bereaux, doc­u­men­ta­tion and dis­tri­b­u­tion co-or­di­na­tor at COTT, spoke about the val­ue the vol­un­teers would add to the roy­al­ty dis­tri­b­u­tion process.

“This year, we would have a ded­i­cat­ed group of per­sons to take logs. We have out­lined a stan­dard set of guide­lines that will lead to a more dili­gent cap­ture of per­for­mance da­ta at Car­ni­val events. More logs will mean more ac­cu­rate and time­ly da­ta for dis­tri­b­u­tion,” Bereaux ex­plained.

Vol­un­teers will be in­ter­viewed and trained be­fore at­tend­ing events over the event–packed Car­ni­val 2018 sea­son. The da­ta they col­lect at the var­i­ous ac­tiv­i­ties will be used to en­sure fair and ac­cu­rate dis­tri­b­u­tion of copy­right roy­al­ties to COTT mem­bers for live per­for­mances and record­ed tracks. The part­ner­ship be­tween VCTT and COTT start­ed of­fi­cial­ly yes­ter­day and will run un­til Feb­ru­ary 13.