Kali­fa Clyne

T&T Car­ni­val may have a low pro­file on Face­book this year.There is con­fu­sion over Car­ni­val copy­right and ac­cred­i­ta­tion is­sues af­ter sev­er­al pro­fes­sion­al pho­tog­ra­phers were told they would not be al­lowed to post im­ages of mas­quer­aders or mas events on so­cial me­dia.This di­rec­tive was said to have come from the Na­tion­al Car­ni­val Bands As­so­ci­a­tion (NC­BA) al­though its pres­i­dent David Lopez laugh­ing­ly de­nied the va­lid­i­ty of the in­for­ma­tion.

Na­tion­al Car­ni­val Com­mis­sion (NCC) chair­man Al­li­son De­mas, how­ev­er, was up to yes­ter­day in­ves­ti­gat­ing pho­tog­ra­phers' claims that they had been told on­line pub­lish­ing rights had been award­ed to one pho­to­graph­ic or­gan­i­sa­tion. De­mas said she was try­ing to clar­i­fy the sit­u­a­tion."My un­der­stand­ing is that the NC­BA has giv­en the rights for on­line stream­ing and pho­tog­ra­phy in re­la­tion to mas events to one per­son," she con­firmed.

But that is not the NCC's of­fi­cial po­si­tion. Her or­gan­i­sa­tion, she said, be­lieves that: "The widest pos­si­ble ac­cess (should) be giv­en to me­dia, sub­ject to phys­i­cal con­straints of space at each venue."De­mas said nei­ther Pan Trin­ba­go nor the Trin­ba­go Uni­fied Ca­lyp­so­ni­ans Or­gan­i­sa­tion (TU­CO) had any ac­cred­i­ta­tion is­sues.

Pho­tog­ra­phers blanked

Ear­li­er this week pho­tog­ra­ph­er Narend Sook­nar­ine col­lect­ed an ac­cred­i­ta­tion ap­pli­ca­tion form from the NCC of­fices at the Queen's Park Sa­van­nah. The form in­di­cat­ed that he would need to col­lect sig­na­tures from four or­gan­i­sa­tions: Pan Trin­ba­go, NC­BA, TU­CO and the NCC.When Sook­nar­ine ap­proached the of­fi­cial from the NC­BA, he was told he would not be al­lowed to pub­lish pho­tos on­line, as some­one had al­ready pur­chased the ex­clu­sive rights for in­ter­net-re­lat­ed con­tent for Car­ni­val.

This would mean that no pho­tog­ra­ph­er would be al­lowed to pub­lish Car­ni­val footage on Face­book, Twit­ter or any oth­er so­cial me­dia plat­form or Web site dur­ing the sea­son.Justin Go­sein, a di­rec­tor of Lime TT, said he had con­ver­sa­tions with both the NCC and the NC­BA and the process with NCC was smooth. He said in his dis­cus­sion with the NC­BA rep­re­sen­ta­tive he was giv­en a quote of $21,000 for ac­cred­i­ta­tion and was then told he would not be al­lowed to pub­lish con­tent on any so­cial me­dia sites.

"I was told that the rights for so­cial me­dia had been pur­chased. But when I asked, they re­fused to name the agency which bought the rights."It is ex­treme­ly dis­cour­ag­ing for pho­tog­ra­phers pro­mot­ing this coun­try's cul­ture. There are so many bar­ri­ers, pho­tog­ra­phers are ner­vous about cov­er­age be­cause of threats of fines."If all me­dia did a black­out on Car­ni­val it would leave a great big hole in the fes­ti­val," Go­sein said.

The pub­lish­ing of ma­te­r­i­al, whether as broad­cast, print or on­line, is a copy­right is­sue and the NC­BA does not have a copy­right func­tion.The NC­BA does, how­ev­er, pro­vide ac­cred­i­ta­tion for the me­dia. Ac­cred­i­ta­tion is the cer­ti­fi­ca­tion that cre­den­tials have been ac­cept­ed so ac­cess can be giv­en for cov­er­age of an event. It has noth­ing to do with pub­lish­ing.