Concerns over government’s seeming indifference to the protection of intellectual property through the modernization of existing copyright laws that are more than fifty years old are, of course, not confined to the Office of the US Trade Representative. Local producers of books and music and representatives of publishers who market their books in Guyana continue to express their frustration over the considerable loss of income associated with the continued growth of the pirating “industry” and the lack of any real effort on the part of government to put an end to the problem.
In the area of the illegal copying and resale of school texts, for example, the problem persists because of the weakness of the laws and also because of the patent refusal of the authorities to take action against traders who openly market pirated texts and who can be prosecuted for this offence even under our existing archaic laws. In recent years major international publishers of school texts and their local representatives have made several pointed observations about loss of income resulting from pirating. These observations, however, have not once been supported by the Ministry of Education which, by its indifference has come to seen as being supportive of the illegality.
As the report from the Office of the US Trade Commissioner points out, the government of Guyana is itself in breach of copyright legislation on account of the routine transmission of copyright-protected material without proper licensing, “by local television stations, including those run by government.” It is perhaps worth mentioning at this juncture that while the government has moved to sanction privately-run television stations for broadcasting material which it deems unacceptable, for one reason or another, it remains blissfully indifferent to the continued blatant and illegal copyright transgressions of the state-run television station. The double-standard could hardly be more pointed.
As far as the Report is concerned resolving the problem goes beyond both the lack of an effective legal framework and the absence of enforcement capacity and enters into the realm of a lack of both the will and the willingness on the part of the Government of Guyana. It notes, for example, that the current outdated laws persist “despite repeated promises (by government) to update legislation to protect the intellectual property of foreign companies in Guyana,” an observation that goes to the heart of what the authors of the Report clearly imply is the complicity of the authorities in the perpetuation of the problem.
Part of the problem with efforts to eradicate the transgression of intellectual property in Guyana has to do with the lucrative and continually growing trade in illegally copied books and music which, of course, is directly linked to what the traders regard as a kind of official endorsement of their illegal pursuits. In the local music industry, where losses resulting from intellectual property infringement have been heaviest, the lobby has proven weak and ineffective. In the book-distribution sector the few remaining publishers’ representatives and bookstores that have survived the relentless copyright infringement onslaught, have, their lobby efforts notwithstanding, failed to make any meaningful impact. Indeed, having concluded that the book pirates enjoy official immunity from any kind of penalty it appears that they have simply stopped trying.
If, as the Report by the Office of the United States Trade Representative suggests, weak copyright laws could impact on the growth of investments in Guyana by foreign companies, that would appear to provide an opening for a much stronger lobby to seek to compel the government to move to reform the legal and enforcement machinery for the protection of copyright. It is, perhaps, a window of opportunity which local copyright lobbyists might wish to embrace and pursue creatively and collectively. The fact that they appear to have an ally in the Office of the United States Trade Commissioner is no small matter.
