Germaine Smith, Staff Reporter
THE CAMPAIGN against music piracy has been a long and tiring one. The issue is complicated, multifaceted and is not restricted to Jamaican shores. Here, the problem has deep roots in the minds of the performers, the purchasers, and the people who reproduce the music, and the resolve to tackle the issue has been long in coming.
The mindset to be conquered is that 'burning' a few CDs for a price is not illegal. Some artistes claim that it promotes their music, while the 'burners' say it is their hustling which brings in the bread. In these raging debates however, one of the areas which has been completely ignored is the role of high schoolers in the piracy industry.
GETTING RICH
High school students are siphoning off more revenue from deejays and singers than many may estimate. In schools across the island, students have been using their computers for years to reproduce the work of artistes and sell them to peers at costs way below that of the retail stores.
Markand Dwayneare examples. They are fourth form students at two popular Kingston high schools. They get pocket money primarily from their
parents, but they 'back up' this income with sales of CDs which they burn from their home computers. Once a tune hits the streets, they make the $400 purchase from the sidewalk vendor, reproduce it, and sell at anywhere between $100 to $200 a pop to friends. After two or three sales they recover the initial investment and start counting profits from there.
NO LIMITS
Their sales are not limited to dancehall music, but anything that is available on CDs. Freshly released films, computer games, or anything that can be digitally reproduced falls in their domain.
Mark and Dwayne do not see what they are doing as a crime, yet they were reluctant to speak with The Sunday Gleaner and would offer no comment on the record.
They are only two examples of an entire generation which practices the unlawful reproduction and sale of CDs. 'Schoolers' have been operating below the radar, burning their CDs and developing a quiet yet thriving business within the halls of learning.
However, this activity has not gone unnoticed by the eyes of the law. The police are aware of it, yet in a simple way their hands are tied. The Intellectual Property Unit is a branch of the Organised Crime Unit of the police and was formed last year. Just three months ago, the unit created history with the first public destruction of illegally created recordings in Jamaica. They destroyed over 4,000 CDs, 700 audio cassettes, 14 DVDs and nine VHS tapes.
Head of the unit, Detective Inspector Winston Lindo, told The Sunday Gleaner that teens in high schools have been quietly operating without intervention for quite a while now, but if they get no complaints from the music owners, plus follow-up statements and court appearances, they are powerless to prosecute.
He states that since the unit was established last year, 25 people have been prosecuted for copyright breaches, all adults.
"We arrested several of those for trademark breaches and a few for music breaches. We found that those arrested for music breaches knew of their crime, as opposed to the others. A few of them were even repeat offenders," he states.
Teens, Lindo admits, have missed the jail cells so far, but to proceed the police need people to complain officially.
"We do not go after people who download for personal use," he cautions. "How we operate is that we respond to complaints from the owners of the music. We cannot just go and prosecute them like that. If the owners do not come forward, we can not move forward with a case."
FACING ADULT CHARGES
If and when this happens, high schoolers peddling their electronic wares could find themselves facing adult charges, which under the 1993 Copyright Act can fetch penalties ranging from $50,000 upwards and jail time of between one and five years if convicted.
"For the juveniles we would have to give them the same charges, but they would have to be prosecuted in the juvenile courts. From there we would have to also deal with the school administrators to let them know what exactly is happening," Inspector Lindo continues.
Personnel at the Jamaica Intellectual Property Office (JIPO) are aware of the situation as well, but have not received many complaints.
"We have not had a lot of reports, but we have had the experience of knowing that it happens," explains Carol Simpson-Robinson, senior programmes manager at JIPO.
"We went to a school for a talk and a student showed me where he was burning CDs and selling them just to his friends. He thought he was an entrepreneur, but he did not see where he was committing a crime. The very fact that he takes money made it illegal, because it is a transaction, even though he and his friends did not see it as illegal," she said.
As she notes the practice is rampant, but the owners to the rights would probably think it harsh to be lodging complaints against high school students who rip off their work.
This should not be so, says Desmond Young, president of the Jamaica Federation of Musicians (JFM). Young, in his many years of experience in bringing the copyright issue to the public's attention, offers a practical view of the matter.
"A thief is a thief, whether he goes to high school or not," he says. "If a high school student walks into a store and steals something it is still a crime and they will lock him up."
"People tend to overlook them doing this because they think that you should not fight a youth making pocket money, but at the same time, this pocket money can run into thousands of dollars. When you add it up, it costs a lot in the long run to the artist who made the work."
According to Young, upon analysis, he can understand why the students go into business. "The schoolers are the music buyers and these youths have easy access to them. They go to the same institution, so they have that market and wrap it up for themselves. Some of them just see it as just helping their friends, so they see nothing wrong with that."
BEHAVIOR CHANGE
This point of view, he notes, is what they are slowly trying to stamp out in order to change behaviour. If the thinking does not change, the situation will continue, Young points out.
As Simpson-Robinson notes, even the music owners develop the mindset that they have no problem with someone reproducing their work and selling it without any benefit to them.
This causes court cases to stall.
"At times they complain, but they do not follow up. Creators of music must be proactive so that the cases go through the courts. It is their loss, because it adds up in the long run," she said.
Not their real names.
