Guyana waits longer for CARICOM copyright, intellectual property laws – Nandlall

Last Updated on Thursday, 28 November 2024, 0:10 by Writer

Instead of enacting its own legislation, Guyana opts to wait a bit longer for a regional copyright and intellectual property bill being drafted by the Caribbean Community (CARICOM), Attorney General and Minister of Legal Affairs, Anil Nandlall said Wednesday.

“We’re not sitting idle at all, but rather than move unilaterally, we believe that we should move regionally in particular if there is a movement in that direction. If the region has agreed to go in that common direction, we would be hard-pressed to move insularly away from that direction,” Mr Nandlall told Demerara Waves Online News.

The Attorney General could not offer a specific timeframe for when the copyright and intellectual property bills would be available. He pointed out that CARICOM was busy drafting model laws governing companies, trademark, business registration, insolvency and bankruptcy. “The intention is to create a common commercial space; in fact to create a common legal space as far as possible,” he said.

Guyana does not have intellectual property legislation, and its copyright law is actually Britain’s 1956 Copyright Act.

There are very few copyright court cases being filed by rights owners in Guyana’s courts. Recently, two Guyanese artistes filed copyright infringement lawsuits against One Communications in a New York Federal Court for unauthorised use of their music during an event to rebrand GTT into One Communications.