Dix­ie-Ann Dick­son

Mas cos­tume de­sign­ers and mas­quer­aders can now en­joy re­al ben­e­fits from their labour as "Works of Mas" are now glob­al­ly recog­nised and pro­tect­ed by in­tel­lec­tu­al prop­er­ty rights. Dr Vi­jay Ram­lal, head of the T&T Copy­right Col­lec­tion Or­gan­i­sa­tion (TTCO), con­firmed this dur­ing a tele­phone in­ter­view on Sun­day. "TTCO, in col­lab­o­ra­tion with the Le­gal Af­fairs Min­istry, un­der the In­tel­lec­tu­al Prop­er­ty Di­vi­sion and through Na­tion­al Car­ni­val De­vel­op­ment Foun­da­tion, had suc­cess­ful­ly pi­lot­ed to the World In­tel­lec­tu­al Prop­er­ty Or­gan­i­sa­tion (WIPO) in Gene­va to es­tab­lish and ac­cept the Works of Mas in­to the WIPO con­ven­tion," Ram­lal said.

He said this was ap­proved last De­cem­ber. "This would al­so make TTCO the on­ly en­ti­ty to col­lect and ne­go­ti­ate roy­al­ties for mas bands," Ram­lal said. He stat­ed this was a sig­nif­i­cant achieve­ment as it would al­low any works of mas in the world to be recog­nised as in­tel­lec­tu­al prop­er­ty. "This was the first phase and we are now push­ing for it to be recog­nised un­der the WIPO treaty and if it is suc­cess­ful, then T&T would be recog­nised glob­al­ly as the in­tel­lec­tu­al prop­er­ty cen­tre for the works of mas," Ram­lal said. "We would now be known for the head­quar­ters for the works of mas."

He added that all coun­tries will be able to sign on and have pro­tec­tion for their mas un­der this copy­right, just as was done for mu­sic. The WIPO treaty is ex­pect­ed to be ne­go­ti­at­ed and for­mu­lat­ed around April /May of this year, he not­ed. Ram­lal said with that achieve­ment TTCO would al­so be able to col­lect roy­al­ties and ac­cred­i­ta­tion fees in­ter­na­tion­al­ly for its 153 mem­ber­ship mas bands in T&T. "We are the on­ly recog­nised body in the world to do so," he added.

Stake­hold­ers to re­ceive their just dues

Ram­lal said stake­hold­ers in the mas in­dus­try have not been re­ceiv­ing their just dues. "The sys­tem which NCC and oth­er bod­ies has been us­ing is un­der­min­ing the val­ue of our Car­ni­val," he said. Draw­ing an ex­am­ple, he said the ac­cred­i­ta­tion fees col­lect­ed by the NCC from or­gan­i­sa­tions and in­ter­na­tion­al me­dia pro­vid­ed no re­al val­ue for mas stake­hold­ers. "It is equal to hold­ing a tick­et to en­ter a fete...these sub­scrip­tion rights can­not be ex­ploita­tive and can­not be used for com­mer­cial use... as it has no re­al val­ue," Ram­lal point­ed out. How­ev­er, peo­ple were abus­ing that right and plac­ing pho­tos in mag­a­zines, post­cards and DVDs with­out prop­er au­tho­ri­sa­tion, he not­ed.

He al­so stat­ed that there were no prop­er mon­i­tor­ing sys­tems in place to over­see these or­gan­i­sa­tions and in­ter­na­tion­al me­dia dur­ing the stag­ing of Car­ni­val in T&T. He added: "These are some of the is­sues that have not been ex­plored and we are in the process of deal­ing with them. "There­fore we need to ne­go­ti­ate with NCC, the in­ter­na­tion­al me­dia and every car­ni­val com­mit­tee to ob­tain a roy­al­ty col­lec­tion li­cence with the TTCO for the mas­quer­aders, de­sign­ers and pro­duc­ers to have their just due," Ram­lal said.

Two sets of rights

Ac­cord­ing to Ram­lal, there are two sets of rights. In one in­stance, where an es­tab­lish­ment like the air­port may show­case a cos­tume, the air­port has to pay copy­right pro­tec­tion fees. The oth­er, he said, is an ap­pear­ance fee where mas­quer­aders per­form at shows like the King and Queen mas com­pe­ti­tions.

The body re­spon­si­ble for the show has to pay fees, in­clud­ing per­for­mance rights and cos­tume rights and an­oth­er that will pro­tect the de­sign­er/pro­duc­er of the cos­tume.