AMERICANS ARE PIRATING WORKS TOO, SAYS JAMAICA’S EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR OF BROADCASTING COMMISSION!

• By Kimberly Small

Jamaican content is being pirated in the United States, a practice that is denying the producer the opportunity to earn from their works in that market.

Cordel Green, executive director of the Broadcasting Commission of Jamaica (BCJ), said his entity has received a number of reports of local plays being pirated abroad.

Executive Director of the Jamaica Broadcasting Commission, Cordell Green

“Even our radio online signals are being pirated. People are capturing our online radio signals, putting them on their own platforms and inserting ads,” Green said during a Gleaner Editor’s Forum yesterday.

Content providers in Jamaica have been under heavy scrutiny from the United States authorities, which alleged that local cable operators have been broadcasting US channels without the proper licence.

In 2015, local cable operators were given strict orders to desist from illegally transmitting several channels and programs after US trade representatives met with local authorities during President Barack Obama’s visit to the island.

Content providers

Professor Anthony Clayton, chairman of the BCJ, said a meeting was convened among representatives of CARICOM, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Ministry of Information, and US content providers and local broadcasters in an attempt to resolve the issue of Jamaican cable providers supplying pirated content.

Clayton said the removal of the illegal channels from cable has led to young people going online to access the content.

“What became very clear is that no one is happy with the status quo,” said Clayton.

“They’re not happy about having their material pirated, they’re not happy about their loss of revenue. On the other hand, they have started to accept that although we are not in favor of copyright infringement, we also recognized that we were pushing people into unregulated space,” he said.