Enforce copyright laws now

Jul 08, 2010 Letters

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Dear Editor,
For sometime now I have been visiting lots of bookstores in Guyana also in the markets buying books and published material for my children and myself.
I note with a great deal of interest that most books today selling in our markets and bookstores are photo copy books. That’s a violation of copyright laws both nationally and internationally.
I took some time to doshopping for my children books also for children attending my church and I observed that books such as: Junior English, First Aid in English, CXC text books in every subject area, books by Caribbean writers like V. S. Naipaul, Derek Walcott, Ian McDonald, Martin Carter, Wilson Harris and the list goes on and on when it comes to ‘book piracy’ and the Government and Ministry of Education does nothing about it.
Why is that so? It’s because we have copyright laws in Guyana but it’s not enforced by law; if was enforced then the owners of these stores selling photocopy books would have been picked up by the police; they would have been sent to prison or pay some heavy court fines like in Trinidad, Jamaica, Barbados and many other nations.
I also see now the piracy of CD’s and DVD’s have become a normal business in this country from the very big store owners to the normal seller in the streets. Many young children are dropping out of schools just to earn a living by selling pirated DVD’s and CD”s.
It’s sad to know that a writer who writes a text book for schools or any other book of poetry, fiction etc to see his/her book selling as a pirated photocopy book in the streets and in the stores and he cannot do anything about it.
It’s sad to know because the writer like myself will take years to write a book and will invest over one million dollar to get his/her book published It’s sad to know that many of our Guyanese singers will take years to compose their songs on a CD travel out of Guyana to get their songs recorded then suddenly their CD is being sold in the streets and CD shops for $200 and 7 for $1000.
What is really happening to the laws of our country? On every corner we can see laws are broken in our country everyday by corrupt people in our society. What is copyright? Does it apply to our country Guyana?
Copyright is a type of protection provided by law to authors of original works of authorship, inclusive of literary, dramatic, musical, artistic and other intellectual works.’
Guyana is a signatory to the Berne Convention and the Universal Copyright Convention.
In addition, other copyright legal provisions are enacted in the Copyright Act 1956 of the United Kingdom to which Guyana acceded in 1966.The problem, however, is that these copyright provisions are not enforced here. Guyana is among 121 countries that were party to the Berne Convention on March 2, 1997. Since Guyana is a signatory of the Berne Convention: then why is it Guyana of all nations violated these copyright laws by not enforcing them? Why is Guyana a signatory of a convention she has no intention to implement and enforce into the laws of Guyana? It’s about time our law makers try to have an understanding of copyright laws to protect our authors, singers, artists etc.
This law must be passed in parliament and all pirated photocopy books, exam papers, DVD”s, CD’s must be removed from the shelves in every store and market stall in Guyana.
A person who photocopies an author book to sell it is just like the thief or robber in our community. At CARIFESTA lots of books were launched and it’s very sad to see all these books are being photocopied and sold at book stores and markets for half price. Guyana is not a good place for writers to launch their books.
Since we are a member of CARICOM then we must follow and adhere to the principles of other CARICOM States. What we need in Guyana is a publishing house or a good printing press at the Ministry of Education to re-publish books written by Caribbean author’s that will be easily available to students in our schools at a reduced price. In an interview some time ago with Hansib Publisher Arif Ali and Petamber Persaud about copyright, Mr Ali, publisher of Hansib said that he can publish text books cheaper for Guyana if our Government can work with him.
Even singer Dave Martin said that copyright laws must be enforced in Guyana because it will put more revenue into the Government’s treasury.
Piracy caused Universal Book Stores to close down and lots of stores are closing. What we need in Guyana is to see the law of the land being adhered to; copyright law is a law in actually every nation in this world. What we need in Guyana is a writers/authors union where writers are represented so that they can take a store owner to court for selling their books and that store owner will now have to compensate the writer financially. The same rule should apply for the singer and artist. This looks like a long hard road for us to travel but it can be done if we work together to enforce the copyright laws in our country.
Writers whose copyright rights are violated will have to probably move to the Caribbean Court of Justice to get justice for their works. I am calling on Government to protect our people with the enforcement of the copyright and piracy laws.
Rev. Gideon Cecil

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