Paulwell. one of our major targets is those persons who are involved in music piracy

Minister of Commerce and Technology Phillip Paulwell on Tuesday announced a "massive public education campaign" which, he said, would take a new approach at stemming breaches of the Copyright Act.

The $40-million campaign, Paulwell said, will run for 12 months after beginning during the second half of this year. Most of the funding will come from the World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO).

"We are fine-tuning (the campaign now)," Paulwell said, during the opening ceremony of a two-day seminar on Collective Copyright Management at the Jamaica Pegasus Hotel. "We intend to (begin) during the summer and we are hoping for it not to be in the traditional form of public education."

The campaign, he explained, would move away from the more formal approach - away from persons who are already familiar with the issues - and to sidewalks where breaches are more obvious.

"One of our major targets is those persons who are involved in music piracy, those who copy compact discs and sell on the corner," he explained.

The first phase will be a mixture of educating and persuading music pirates to stop this illegal practice.

"(Initially), we are not going to be using the heavy hands of the laws as the means of compliance, but just to educate them to let them know that those artists, whom they love to hear, need to survive and the basis of their survival is the sale of his or her music," Minister Paulwell said.

He explained that the Jamaica Copyright Licensing Agency (Jamcopy) will deal with the more formal issues, like the illegal copying of textbooks - a common occurrence in educational institutions.

The Collective Copyright Management seminar is being jointly hosted by Jamcopy and the International Federation of Reprographic Rights Organisations with the Canada-based Access Copyright and the Jamaica Intellectual Property Office as associates.

On Tuesday, there was a presentation from Access Copyright's executive director, Steve Wardle, who spoke on 'collective copyright management' and pledged his continued support to Jamcopy.

Meanwhile, Carol Newman, Jamcopy's managing director, spoke of the assistance her agency can give, while Bruce Funkhouser of the International and Business Operations, Copyright Clearance Centre in the US gave seminar attendees tips on how to protect their copyright in the digital world.

Other planned sessions were scheduled to focus on collective licensing for the tertiary education sector. Among the topics that were down for discussion were:

. aspects of the Jamaica Copyright Act;

. obtaining a Jamcopy license;

. the user's right to access works;

. the creator's right to compensation; and

. how illegal photocopying hurts the publisher.

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