Cayman Islands will be falling under the United Kingdom’s umbrella regarding copyright laws. Cayman Islands Minister of Commerce Wayne Panton has just made the announcement. See today’s iNews Cayman’s Front Page story “Cayman Islands Copyright laws to change”.

Together with this story is a related one “US warns Caribbean over copyright”.
This is obviously no coincidence.
The U.S. has begun to crack down on Caribbean trade bloc countries that have used American television and other programmes without respecting copyright issues for decades.

Caricom stated: “Officials warned many of the territories that they will be disqualified from preferential export trade schemes if they fail to comply.”
Minister Panton acknowledged that for an inordinately long time, successive governments have heard from local entrepreneurs and artists, as well as from potential investors, who need the security provided by stronger intellectual property (IP) protection either to safeguard their current works, to engage in either the development of new business, or to relocate business to Cayman.

‘These persons recognise the importance of having IP rights. They also understand that having those rights also means exercising the responsibility to uphold them, by not infringing upon the rights of others”, Minister Panton said.
So Panton is going to get his Ministry to conduct a public education campaign and to make necessary arrangements for local implementation that will take at least six months.

Throughout the Caribbean the situation has been festering for years without any real action from either side. It now looks that things are going to change.

What will be interesting is how these copyright laws are going to be policed? What are the penalties going to be?

Copying somebody else’s work is wrong, especially if they do not get reimbursed for it.

The Copyright Licensing Agency in the United Kingdom says:

“Copyright is important to creators like writers and artists as well as those such as publishers that own rights, as it provides them with a legal right of ownership of the work that they produce.

“This means that creators of an original piece of work can have some control over how it is used, which is not only fair but necessary for them to make a living from their talent and efforts. When they have the means to make a living from their work then they can continue to invest their time, and, in the case of publishers, their money into the production of new work.

“In fact, a report by Price Waterhouse Cooper (PwC) in 2011 concluded that the copyright system plays a significant role in incentivising investment in the development of new content; furthermore, it underpins substantial economic growth and innovation across the UK economy. PwC also found that there was £4.3bn invested in the production of new content in the UK in 2007 alone.

“Government figures estimate that there are around 770,000 original content creators in the UK who enjoy the protection of copyright and who receive income and incentive as a result of the copyright system – this includes software developers and musicians as well as writers and publishers.”

SOURCE: http://schools.cla.co.uk/how-copyright-affects-schools/why-copyright-is-important/

In the Cayman Islands we have been used to “stealing” television signals. It is going to be even more interesting how the government are going to deal with the local companies here who take out a subscription for television programming only available in the USA, and resell it to their customers here via a dish.

Whilst it all sounds sensible I believe it is going to be one mighty headache to enforce. You might just as well make another Ministry with its own Copyright Minister with 100 or so staff to try and make it work. And, at what cost?

Perhaps we should set up a committee to investigate all the ramifications?

Yes it could well be copywrong.