Bad news for Jamaican music. The phonographic market feeling the stabs of piracy!

Jamaican music could be riding high, with Shaggy, Sean Paul and Beenie Man selling a lot. However, the market and consequently music are succumbing to the harm caused by piracy. Tuff Gong is one of those suffering the most, says Norman Bryan, manager. The label's two releases this year that had the most investment were boycotted by piracy. "We had thousands of CDs ready to be distributed, but they remained largely in the warehouse, because everyone already had the pirated product". Norman is referring to Sizzla's new album, "Da Real Thing" and the compilation "50 Cent's Get Rich, Die Trying". According to Delroy Morrison, Sales Manager at Dynamic Sounds, one of the island's largest labels, the company had to drastically reduce the distribution of titles from various producers/labels that have existed for decades. "We are not accepting new work from producers. We are functioning only as manufacturers and selling to small distributors. A while ago we manufactured and distributed everything that was produced", Morrison explains. Sonic Sounds general manager Jason Lee is willing to change the situation. A few years ago, Lee gathered producers and label heads in a project to protect local music against piracy, supported by the Commerce Minister at the time. However, not much success was achieved, as everyone felt the government was merely interfering in business to apply more taxes. Now Jason says producers, distributors and labels are sinking, while piracy grows stronger. "When we had the chance to deal with the problem, we didn't have enough support for our effort. Now everyone is feeling the effects", Lee comments, also speaking of the consequent dismissal of many employees. Currently, the only force that has managed to combat piracy at least slightly in Jamaica is the "Organized Crime Investigation Police", which has tried to control piracy not only of musical products, but all copyrighted materials. The police is led by Inspector Winston Lindo, and according to music distributors, if it weren't for their effort, things would be even worse. Large-scale seizures have been made in Rural Jamaica, which distributes all illegal material in Kingston, St. Catherine, St. James, among other hubs on the island. Inspector Winston Lindo confirmed that his group's activity led record companies to see sensible improvements in sales this year, and prospects for 2004 are even better. Piracy is Reggae's worst enemy, and a survey recently conducted by Microsoft concluded that the widespread dissemination of CD and DVD Recorders is directly related to the number of CDs a person buys. On the other hand, consumers say the problem is the price of CDs, and that musicians' creativity has dropped a lot lately, often not making it worth investing in an original CD. Derrick Harriot, famous Jamaican singer, who has much of his success on LPs and Singles, and who currently has a store, admits that if there is no creativity on both the album production side and the seller's side, piracy simply wins the war. "A few years ago I sold 300 copies of Bounty Killer's album "Millenium" in 2 days. This year, the largest order I placed was 50 CDs of Elephant Man, "Good 2 Go", which still has many units stuck here in stock." He also says that while he has a CD to be sold for 9 dollars, pirates not only select the best songs from a series of CDs, put them on one disc and can sell for less than 3 dollars, with exorbitant profits. "I don't sell even half of what they sell on the streets", he says. According to a survey, in 2002 the Piracy industry billed 4.6 billion dollars. Jamaica, being one of the world's greatest musical hotbeds, absorbs a large part of this loss. Piracy consists of infringing copyright laws on a commercial scale. For the Recording industry, there are 3 categories: Simple Piracy: Duplication of an original recording for commercial gain, without the consent of the copyright holder. Generally those who infringe the law in this category are compilations made by the pirates themselves. Counterfeits: They are copied as faithfully as possible and sold as originals many times: the "Bootlegs": Unauthorized recordings of live performances, which are reproduced and sold without the permission of the artist, composer or label. Many define piracy as freedom of access to information. But what about the person who worked, who played, the producer who paid musicians for recording, the label that paid the factories, and all the promotion, publicity? The person who sells illegal copies nullifies all this work, without paying any tax or fee, using it only for themselves.

MORE INFORMATION

Original Source: JamaicaObserver