Mark Lyn­der­say

It shouldn't be sur­pris­ing, giv­en the Na­tion­al Car­ni­val Com­mis­sion's (NCC) fail­ure to hold a pub­lic con­sul­ta­tion on the copy­right is­sues that arose in 2013, to find the whole ug­ly mess bub­bling up again.

Pho­tog­ra­phers who went to the NCC to seek ac­cred­i­ta­tion for the 2014 edi­tion of the event found no re­duc­tions in the fee and a new and shock­ing is­sue to deal with.

On Feb­ru­ary 11, pho­tog­ra­phers seek­ing a pass to cov­er Car­ni­val were told that if they checked the on­line op­tion on the form, it would not be ap­proved.

The Na­tion­al Car­ni­val Bands As­so­ci­a­tion (NC­BA), they were told, had sold the right to pub­lish on­line to a sin­gle, un­named en­ti­ty. Read Narend Sook­nar­ine's ac­count of that meet­ing here: http://ow.ly/tG0c8.

That sto­ry changed with­in 24 hours to an ap­proval for Web sites. When con­front­ed with this sto­ry by the T&T Guardian's Kali­fa Clyne last week, NC­BA boss­man David Lopez dis­missed the pos­si­bil­i­ty.

Ap­par­ent­ly, one is left to as­sume, bored cler­i­cal staff must have made up the whole sto­ry to add a bit of spice to a dull day. Yes, that must be it, be­cause oth­er­wise, some­one is ly­ing.

Mean­while, the T&T Copy­right Or­gan­i­sa­tion (TTCO) has launched an­oth­er board­ing ma­noeu­vre that seems un­re­lat­ed to the rights hi­jack al­leged­ly un­der way at the NC­BA.

The col­lec­tion agency has de­mand­ed back pay in the sum of $6 mil­lion on be­half of the Na­tion­al Car­ni­val De­vel­op­ment Foun­da­tion (NCDF), one of the three or­gan­i­sa­tions that rep­re­sent the in­ter­ests of band­lead­ers and, it is wide­ly ru­moured, mas­quer­aders.

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