By Germaine Smith, Staff Reporter 
DANCEHALL MUSIC is booming. However, as deejays scramble to get on to popular rhythms and make hits, not many are thinking of the publishing rights they are due whenever their music is used.
Dancehall artistes have been known not to pursue publishing rights for their work, despite the many benefits that are to be derived from doing so. Local players, it would seem, are more interested in making popular hits now, doing interviews and going on stage shows and touring overseas, rather than tackling the legal aspects of collection for their work.
It is as if the blinding pace of their careers prevents them from seeing the seriousness of pursuing their publishing rights, or the legal groundwork required is too complicated for them.
"Most of us don't respect our own work and because we want to get rich quickly we sell out ourselves," says copyright specialist and talk show host Tony Laing. Laing is one of the founders and an interim administrator of the Jamaica Association of Composers, Authors and Publishers (JACAP), one of the publishing and copyright bodies in Jamaica.
"You have to treat your intellectual property like any other property that you have and hire the agents to look out for your rights. The people who are not obeying these rules are the ones who it affects more," he adds.
How exactly do publishing rights impact on deejays, anyway? If their records are selling rapidly in stores and they get paid for the several shows and dub plates they are doing, why should they care?
The extent to which artistes should care was illustrated by the president of the International Intellectual Property Institute, Bruce A. Lehman, in November 2000, when he delivered a speech here in Jamaica. Lehman said that Jamaican artistes are owed huge sums of money worldwide, especially in France. Because of the accumulation over the years, the sum has
ballooned to millions of dollars. He said that there was $150,000,000 in undistributed royalties in France, and Jamaica's share of that could be as high as 15 per cent of that sum.
"When you create material you own it," Laing explains. "The first thing you have to do is register it with a copyright collection agency or body. If you are not assigned to a collection agency you cannot collect."
According to the Copyright Act (1993), if one wishes to use copyright music in public, that is, anywhere outside one's domestic circle, one must first get permission from every single person whose music one intends to use. This task is virtually impossible, hence the presence of royalty collection bodies to do the job.
What this means is that if an artiste's song is used by any radio station, sound system or other body in public, they are entitled to collect some royalties for the use of their work.
Why, then, do not artistes care about these things if they can result in them earning thousands or possibly millions of dollars more?
"This is because they don't know, as it is not being put on the forefront of the table," reasons Cordel 'Scatta' Burrell. Burrell, over the years has produced some of dancehall's leading rhythms, including 'Bad Company', 'Martial Arts' and several others.
"Some people would like publishing knowledge to be put under the rug. They want people to remain ignorant about the music, so that when they create music other people collect from it as well," he adds. "The artistes and musicians need to sit down and know how publishing works. It will make it easier for them when the music makes the transition overseas."
NOT PROPERLY STRUCTURED
For Ce'Cile, the lackadaisical attitude which prevails comes from when Jamaica's music industry was not properly structured. "The business itself was not set up properly from the beginning," she explains. "Some of these deejays have the thinking of the earlier days, when radio stations were just playing their music all the time without compensation, when sound systems played it and several other things were ignored," she adds. "There is a lot of money out there to be collected but many of us don't go about doing it."
To set up the collection process, Tony Laing explains, is not complicated. He emphasised that every person who contributed to the production of the tune needs to be given their credit as well. From producers to arrangers to musicians to authors, each just needs to be given credit.
According to information coming from JACAP, their organisation 'licenses the use of copyright music, the fees for which are turned over as royalties to the copyright music creators; the people who own the copyright in the music... all license fees collected are distributed not only to its own members in Jamaica but also to creators overseas whose music is used here. As far as possible the net royalties are distributed to the owners of works in accordance with the extent to which those works are used. Records are kept of copyrighted music and at the time of distribution a process of matching takes place between works registered with us and other societies and information available to us on the use of any of those works. All licensees are required to provide information on the music used to assist in the distribution process.'
With those procedures in effect, as artistes' royalties seem almost secured once they are registered with a collecting agency and, according to 'Scatta', local acts need to start doing this now. "The sooner we start doing these things are the better," Burrell continues. "Publishing laws are user friendly so almost anyone can sit down and learn about them. If you even can't do it, spend some money and hire a lawyer to explain it to you. There are a lot of unclaimed funds in the pipeline for Jamaican artistes. We as musicians need to know how to sign up these things properly," he says.
For Ce'Cile, like other things in Jamaica, the situation will become better with time. "The change is going to come. We are a Third World country and things take a little while to develop. The more exposure our music gets, the lawyers will get into the business and the more artistes will begin to learn."
