Jason Lee, managing director, Sonic Sounds Limited

Jamaican music may be bubbling abroad with the success of Shaggy, Sean Paul and Beenie Man, but the local industry is sagging under the weight of piracy.

"It's bad, very bad," Norman "Bulpus' Bryan, Tuff Gong international product and sales manager summed it up.

Harriott. admits that the level of piracy in the local market is really a threat to the business here

Tuff Gong has suffered badly from the piracy of their two biggest products for the year- 50 Cent's Get Rich, Die Trying and Sizzla's dancehall smash Da Real Thing. The company's best seller is still Bob Marley's Legend compilation, although it represents hot urban labels like Bad Boys, Island/Def Jam, Interscope and Motown.

"We have thousands of CDs packed up in the warehouse that we can't move, yet everybody has the product," Bryan bemoaned.

Cleveland Drummond working in the pressing plant at Sonic Sounds, Retirement Road, Kingston

According to Dynamic Sounds' sales manager, Delroy Morrison, the company has been forced to drastically reduce its distribution business to a few seasoned producers/labels, which have been using its services for decades now. These are Stone Love, Jammy's, Shocking Vibes and Digital B.

"We don't accept new products from producers. We are now a service company for the small distributors, in that we manufacture the records, but we don't distribute for them," Morrison explained.

Neville Reynolds, production manager, Sonic Sounds, sorting some new 45 rpms (Photos: Bryan Cummings)

Dynamic Sounds still distributes locally for Sony, Atlantic, Elektra and Warner but he says that those are the products, which suffer primarily from piracy. He says that he is crossing his fingers for 2004.

Sonic Sounds' managing director, Jason Lee, has all but given up on changing the situation. A few years ago, Lee attempted to get the producers/labels committed to a project intended to protect local CDs from piracy, backed by the ministry of commerce's copyright unit. But, that fell through after the producers backed off, claiming that government was prying into their business to tax them.

Now, Lee says, labels, producers and distributors are sinking under the weight of increased piracy of Reggae/dancehall CDs and poor sales of vinyl records.

"When we had a chance to deal with the matter, they wouldn't support the effort. Now everybody is feeling the effects," Lee added, pointing to the crawling pace of activities at Sonic Sounds and a consequential reduction in staff.

The only promise on which all three agree is the resurgence of the police's Organised Crime Investigation Unit (OCIU), based at Ocean Boulevard, downtown Kingston, which has been trying to keep the level of piracy of, not only music products but all copyrighted material, under control.

The unit is led by inspector Winston Lindo and, according to the major distributors, were it not for their hard work, things would have been even worse.

Bryan said that there has been a marked improvement in rural sales, which he attributes to the activities of the unit. The unit has raided a number of outlets for pirated CDs in Kingston, St Catherine and St James this year with much success and made several arrests.

Lindo confirmed that the activities of his team has led to the companies announcing slight improvements in their sales this year and raised hopes for better sales in 2004. In fact, he says that several of the people who have been arrested on piracy charges have expressed a willingness to legalise their operations.

"Some have actually started and this has led to the improvement."

But, for the local industry to get back on its foot will take much more than the OCIU is capable of doing with its limited personnel, equipment and training in copyright matters.

Piracy is the biggest threat to the music industry worldwide and reggae music - because of its characteristic loose business standards - is probably the easiest target.

A research paper prepared by computer scientists engaged by software giant, Microsoft, recently suggested that the gradual spread of CD and DVD burners will thwart any attempt to control what the public can do with the music they buy.

But, on the other hand some consumers say that the problem is that CD prices are too high and when they purchase the originals they have to plough through a number of lesser tracks to get to the good ones.

Retailer Derrick Harriott of Derrick's One-Stop in Twin Gates Plaza, Constant Spring Road admits that they have a point, if you don't bring the creative element into it. But, he admits that the level of piracy in the local market is really a threat to the business here."

"A few years ago I sold 300 copies of Bounty Killer's Millennium album in two days. The biggest order I made recently was for 50 each of the Elephant Man's Good 2 Go and VP's Strictly The Best CDs," he confessed.

But, Harriott admits that while he has to sell CDs for an average of $900 each, the pirates, not only select the best hits from a number of CDs and put them on one disc but, is able to sell the disc for as little as $300.

"I can't make 50% of what they make on the streets," he said.
According to the latest available information, the global pirate market was estimated at about 2 billion units in 2002 and the value estimated at US$4.6 billion.

Jamaica, obviously, absorbs a small portion of that, but enough to undermine the viability of the local business.
Some customers of pirated products fail to see why it is illegal, but a definition of what piracy means as well as an explanation of what pirating does, should explain.

Piracy is the deliberate infringement of copyright on a commercial scale. In the music industry there are three categories:

* Simple Piracy - the unauthorised duplication of an original recording for commercial gain without the consent of the owner of the rights. The packaging of pirated copies is different from the originals and are usually compilations.

*Counterfeits - are copied and packaged to resemble the original as closely as possible. The original producer's trademark and logos are reproduced in order to mislead the consumer into believing they are buying the original product.

* Bootlegs -s these are the unauthorised recordings of live or broadcast performances, which are duplicated and sold without the permission of the artiste, composer or record company.

Well, you may consider it freedom of access to information, but what about the person who created the work, the person who performed it, the producer who booked the studio facilities and assembled high priced musicians to record it and the company which has to pay to manufacture and promote it? The person who sells the illegal copies makes all the profits without any input and no overheads.

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