Howard Walker, Staff Reporter
JAMAICA INTELLECTUAL Property Office (JIPO), a Government agency, with the help of the police, will be destroying more than 5,000 pirated compact discs, audio tapes and DVDs at the Riverton City Land Fill, off Spanish Town Road, Kingston, today in a renewed effort to stamp out intellectual piracy.
More than 4,800 compact discs, 700 audio tapes, 14 DVDs and 9 VHS tapes will be destroyed. In the Corporate Area Criminal Court at Half-way Tree on June 14, Rackine Bogle, was fined $200,000 or six months in prison for music piracy.
Bogle, a music vendor on Constant Spring Road, St. Andrew, was charged with several counts of music piracy. He is one of 70 persons charged with several counts of music piracy under Section 46 of the Copyright Act.
"This is the biggest fine so far," said Det. Inspector Winston Lindo, head of the Intellectual Property Unit of the Organised Crime Division.
In explaining the huge penalty imposed on Bogle, Det. Insp. Lindo said that each song was regarded as one count of piracy but that would be too costly a punishment, "so individuals are charged by CDs and how big the operation is".
Musicians have long lamented the fact that piracy will lead to the collapse of the industry and Phil Mathias, administrator at Jamaica Musical Rights Society, said "the entire Copyright Act is being abused by them (CD/cassette vendors)".
According to Mathias, the industry could be losing approximately $17 million a year through piracy. Last year 300,000 CDs were sold at $600 to $800 each with 50 per cent of that being pirated; 80,000 cassettes were sold at $120 each with 80 per cent pirated.
Natalie Wilmot, manager of copyright at JIPO, said piracy was the biggest problem that authors faced in the copyright world".
"Technology has made life very easy, it's a blessing and a curse at the same time. It encourages the pirates to get creative unfortunately," she said, citing the need to change the culture at looking at copyright and intellectual property.
In an earlier interview music vendor, 'Cassette Ninja' who has been in the business for 15 years said vendors played a big role in helping to promote artistes as through them, street people could become familiar with new rhythms and tunes.
In April 2004, in Romania, 62,000 pirated CD and DVD with music, films and software were seized and crush in an worldwide effort by that Government in accordance with the World Intellectual Property Office efforts to stamp out piracy.
