CATEGORY:CARNIVAL
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By Wallace J.A (Inside Grenada correspondent)

GRENADA (August 2, 2006) – Just when Grenadians were about to express satisfaction with the lack of mêlée in this years carnival buildup, a controversy involving the use of the theme song ‘August is the Time’ has broken out. The song was originally produced and sung by one called Sebert back in the 1980’s The ‘catchy’ song was redone by Mario Castle this year for Carnival 2k6 and is used as the theme song for carnival.

This morning, an individual who identified himself as Sebert called a well-known local FM radio station from his overseas home to complain about the use of his song. The individual claimed that he had an agreement with one, Dexter Mitchell, of the Grenada Carnival Committee (GCC), relating to the use of this song for carnival. He went on to explain that they had agreed on the payment of a certain sum of money for the use of the song and to date, he has not received any payment from the local organizer. This, he claimed, is rather unfortunate, since the monies that they had agreed upon were very reasonable under the circumstances. He expressed a high level of disappointment and frustration and intends to pursue the matter.

Many persons subsequently called the local radio station to voice their support for Sebert, including a very well known local artiste who is obviously dissatisfied with the way things have been progressing.

In one of the Internet talk shops, where people post their views on various issues and concerns, someone who purports to be Dexter Mitchell posted a response to the allegations. Dexter stated “…I cannot buy a song from anyone. The rights to any song is always in part owned by the originator, no matter what.” He went on to state that the GCC came to an agreement with the artiste in question to compensate him for use of the music and lyrics and he was a part of the process all the way through. “ I wrote a contract, had the artiste sign it and fax it to me. Obviously things are a bit hectic in the office right now hence the delay in sending off the agreed amount to the artiste.” He further stated that he would never, in any way, undermine the interests of any artiste, especially the local ones.

In a related matter, earlier on this week, a local artiste confronted a local music vendor who was ‘pirating’ his music. This has been a problem that local artistes have been struggling with over the years. After spending large sums of money to get their music on cassettes and CD’s, many local music vendors simply ‘burn’ copies of the music and sell them to the public, disregarding copyright laws in the process. As a direct result of this, many local artistes earn next to nothing for their hard work. They have been clamoring for the enforcement of the copyright laws for some time now.

Grenadianconnection wishes to advise all persons who are involved in the act of ‘pirating music’ to desist from the practice since it is illegal. It is actually stealing the intellectual work of another person and selling it to make personal profit.