INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY LAWS AND JUNKANOO
Fred Mitchell, Chairman of the PLP, has been talking about the proposed changes to the intellectual property laws which will give greater protection for the artists in Junkanoo. In a voice note on Wednesday and Friday of last week, 29 and 27th December 2023, he said that right now if a picture is taken of a costume by a photographer, the rights to that are the photographer’s. The builder of the costume gets nothing. Similarly, the music that is played by the Junkanoo bands and is televised throughout the world, no royalties are paid to the artists who wrote the music. He argues that this must change if Junkanoo is to be a sustainable product.