Kavelle Anglin-Christie, Staff Reporter

Big Youth perform at Stars-R-Us on Christmas night, 2004, at Club Inferno, Ironshore, St. James. He said he has not had good experiences with collection agencies. - file

Quite a few Jamaican artistes are being sought after by SoundExchange, a non-profit performance rights organisation based in the United States, to collect royalties before December 15 of this year.

Some of them are Eek-a-Mouse, Burro Banton, Big Youth, Singing Melody, Sizzla, The Abyssinians, Alton Ellis, Yellowman, Mystic Revealers and Millie Small. Nicodemus, who is now dead, is also on the list of those who could collect.

According to the organisation's website, 'SoundExchange', Inc. ... (has) hundreds of recording companies and thousands of artists united in receiving fair compensation for the licensing of their music in the new and ever-expanding digital world.

Modern technology makes all of our lives a little bit simpler and SoundExchange takes full advantage of its accuracy and efficiency to license, collect and distribute public performance revenues for sound recording copyright owners (SRCOs) and artistes for noninteractive digital transmissions on cable, satellite and webcast services."

performance right

"Prior to 1995, SRCOs in the United States did not have a performance right. This meant that, unlike their counterparts in most of Europe and other nations around the world, recording companies and artists were not entitled to receive payment for the public performance of their works. Users of music, the digital music service providers, freely performed these works at will, without a dime being paid to the rightful owners of those recordings or the featured artists who performed the songs - the recordings which created the backbone of their business," it continues.

When The Sunday Gleaner spoke with Singing Melody, it was the first he had heard about the organisation and that he was being sought by them.

"I don't know how it is that they can't locate me. My business is set up proper and I have a publisher who collects for me ... I will check it out to get more details," he said.

The Jamaican artistes on the list are only a few of the hundreds of international artistes being sought. One therefore wonders how difficult or easy it is for an artiste to collect royalties.

Singing Melody says once an artiste joins a music organisation that deals to their rights, they should be able to access their royalties.

copyright your stuff for security reasons

"It's not really difficult, but you have to join a society. There are places like the American Society for Composers, Authors and Publishers (ASCAP) and any other society that is not just about mechanical royalties. But you also have to get a publisher to publish your stuff. The first step, though,is to copyright your stuff for security reasons, so that people can't just jump and use your things without your permission. You also need to make sure that all your information is always correct, so that people will know where to send your stuff. That used to happen to me a lot in the earlier part of my career," he said.

He also said he was impressed with the knowledge that most current artistes have about the business, which most veteran artistes were not exposed to.

Singing Melody is partly right. While some veteran artistes were not adequately exposed to musical societies, Big Youth was, and says it has not been beneficial.

uses skill to survive

Big Youth, who is known for S.90 Skank and Concrete Jungle, says "I am a part of (an organisation) and is a whole heap of go round and come round from 1975. I don't collect any royalties and people from all around the world will see you and think that you are being so rich, yet I just have to use my skill to survive."

He also says he has tried to join other organisations, "but they want all sort of big percentage that I can't afford. Back in the days I was dumb to the mechanical side of things. But in 2000 I get serious, so right now everything is in the hands of some lawyers."

So what makes SoundExchange different? According to a representative of the organisation, who wish not to be named, they are a "non-profit organisation, so the only cost they will pay is the administration fee which is taken from the pool of royalties" and under normal circumstances they distribute royalties every three months.

The representative also spoke of how the artistes should go about contacting the organisation for their royalties.

"We need the artistes to go online (www.soundexchange.com) and print the forms. There they should fill out a set of forms containing their contact information, who we should pay, especially in the case of a band, whether it is the band or the individual. Then they mail it to us," he said.

He also the extensive list is by no means exhaustive. There are other artistes who have not yet made the list because their royalties are not yet of a considerable amount.

"The ones there, it's just that they are more at risk of losing their money because we can't keep it forever. This is the royalty that has been accumulated between 1996 and 2001 and is basically at risk if being lost. It doesn't mean that they lose all their money, just for a certain period. Those whose names are not on the list, it may be that their royalty is too small for us to release," he said.

He says since the list was posted a few months ago artistes have been coming forward to claim the royalties. "People are constantly registering. There have been many artistes who have been coming forward. In other words, it's working," he said.