Startling deficiencies in Bahamian copyright laws have created an untenable situation where US sound recordings are not protected, with a watchdog group issuing a thinly-veiled recommendation that Washington should withdraw trade preferences that benefit $100 million worth of Bahamian exports per annum.
The international Intellectual Property Alliance (IIPA), whose membership includes the US movie, television and music industries, said the Copyright Act did not provide protection fro US and international sound recordings because the Bahamas had not signed on to various international treaties.
The IIPA, in its annual recommendation to the US Trade Representativeﾴs Office on how well countries throughout the world protected copyrights, urged the Bahamian government to both protect US sound recordings and implement the World Intellectual Property Organizationﾴs (WIPO) 1996 treaties.
Not ratifying WIPOﾴs Performances and Phongorams Treaty, coupled with the Bahamas not being a member of the Geneva Phonogram Convention or the World Trade Organization (WTO), meant US sound recordings are not protected in the Bahamas.
The IIPA, which recommended that the Bahamas be kept on the US Trade Representativeﾴs watch list in 2006, said: This untenable situation is starting, because the Bahamas is a beneficiary country of the US preferential Caribbean Basin Initiative (CBI) trade programme, which requires adequate and effective protection for US copyrighted materials, including sound recordings.
The group pointed out that in order to qualify for the CBIﾴs trade preferences, which allow Bahamian exports to enter the US duty of tariff free, this nation had to provide adequate and effective means under its laws to protect copyrights and other exclusive intellectual properties.
The Bahamas, the IIPA said, exported to the US some $99.7 million worth of goods under the CBO during the first 11 months of 2005. This sum accounted for 15.2 per cent of its US exports, and was a 20.9 per cent rise on the same period in 2004.
This thus shows the leverage the IIPA is urging the Bush administration to use, and the potential economic harm that could be caused to the Bahamas should the withdrawal of trade preferences become reality.
The IIPA said: The Bahamas has the potential to be a successful market for the legitimate recorded music industry die to high levels of tourism and per capita income. The legitimate industry is interested in the exploitation of local and international repertoire in public locations, including cruise ships, and be broadcasters.
The immediate impact of these inadequacies is that international sound recordings do not receive the same treatment as local sound recordings, and that Internet exploitation of music may be unprotected in the Bahamasﾅﾅ.
In brief the Bahamas has many steps to take to improve its national legislation, including, at a minimum, ratifying the WIPO Copyright Treaty and the substantive provisions of the Paris Act (1971) of the Berne Convention.
The IIPA exercise could be viewed as an annual sabre-rattling exercise by US copyright holders such as the Independent Film & Television (IFTA), Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) and Recordings Industry Association of American (RIAA).
However, it again shows how the Bahamas is being impacted by an increasingly globalised world, being forced to play by others’ rules. However, if this nation wants to play its part in the international community, it is likely it will have to enforce copyright rules rather than be seen as a lawless society where anything goes.
Many Bahamians who sell bootlegged DVDs, CDs and designed goods and clothes probably feel they are doing nothing wrong, simply earning a living and satisfying a demand for branded products at cheap prices.
They are unlikely to appreciate the ramifications for the Bahamas of copyright violations and, if a full crackdown on such products was implemented, it is likely that a number of Bahamians would see their incomes severely reduced.
The IIPA noted that the Bahamas was not a member of the WTO< meaning that it remained outside the provisions of that treaty's Trade Related Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) provisions and the Berne Convention.
Although the former FNM administration submitted its accession request in May 2001, and a Working Party set up two months later to assess this, the IIPA said the Bahamas made no progress since.
The organization said the Bahamas had yet to submit a Memorandum on its Foreign Trade Regime, based on information supplied by the WTO, and the Working Party had not met.
By Neil Hartnell
Tribune Business Editor
