From St Lucia Times

Caribbean Cinemas filed an appeal Tuesday against the judgment of the High Court which allowed the Eastern Caribbean Collective Organisation for Music Rights (ECCO), to claim damages as a non-exclusive licensee of several copyright organizations, a statement from Caribbean Cinemas has said.

Caribbean Cinemas said it is determined to ensure that the Law of Copyright that is applied in Saint Lucia, allows for a collective society here to operate within the established boundaries of the law.

“Caribbean Cinemas therefore looks forward to the consideration of its Appeal and wishes to assure the public that it is committed to the legal process that will finally determine this issue,” the statement said.

ECCO recently won judgement in the High Court against Mega Plex Entertainment which operates Caribbean Cinemas here.

In a civil suit, ECCO sued Mega Plex for copyright infringement and asked the court for damages.

On July 25, 2017, Justice Godfrey Smith ruled in favour of ECCO.

The Judge found that the cinema was liable for infringing the rights of ECCO’s members.

ECCO hailed the ruling as a ‘landmark’ decision.

“The cinema airs movies and in airing the movies there’s music within the movies and the music within the movies is owned by people and the people who own that music are persons represented by ECCO, so ECCO is entitled to a portion of the revenue for those movies being aired and the music being aired within those movies,” ECCO’s Legal Counsel, Thaddeus Antoine had explained following the High Court ruling.

For more on this story go to: https://stluciatimes.com/2017/08/08/caribbean-cinemas-appeals-landmark-judgement