Absolute Crave party promoter questions JACAP licence fee policy

Goulbourn, a native and resident of Old Harbour, raised the issue at a recent town hall meeting put on by the St Catherine Municipal Corporation at Old Harbour High School.

He contends that promoters like himself are not guarantee recouping funds paid to JACAP – the sole authority vested to collect and distribute royalties to its over 3,000 members.

Event promoters by law need to obtain a JACAP licence for commercial or entertainment purpose. Failure to do so could result in the promoter facing legal action for copyright infringement which can result in injunctions, fines or imprisonment.

JACAP general manager Lydia Rose explained at the meeting that licensing fees are determined by the capacity of the entertainment venue.

“The JACAP fee is not fixed because it depends on the type of event you are having. If you are having a round robin that fee is fixed,” said Rose in response to Goulbourn.

“For example you couldn’t expect someone who owns a bar with a capacity to hold 100 persons to be paying the same as somebody having a party in a park that can hold 10,000 persons,” she added. “The fact is the copyright law speaks to the dissemination to who is hearing the music, so that is how the tariff is set. If it’s 100 persons hearing the music it (JACAP licence fee) is less than if its 10,000 people hearing the music.”

However, Goulbourn was quick to point out that having a big venue to host a party doesn’t always means a large crowd will follow.

“We can have a big venue catering for 100,000 persons and only two persons turn up,” Goulbourn argued.

“But that’s the risk you as a party promoter take. You can also cater for 100 and 1,000 people turn up,” Rose shot back. “We are not going to come back to you and say pay us the difference in the cost. We would have to take that loss.

“On the other side if you cater for 100 and 50 turn up that’s just the risk you are taking. We are not there promoting for you. We can only do as per what our tariff say.

“I have seen where somebody come in (to JACAP) and say they’re having a fish fry and when we audited that event they were having a big party. We don’t go back and say ‘OK you only paid us $6,000 you really should have paid us $60,000’. We just know that the next time for that person we cannot take their word for it.”

She said JACAP’s policy is based on international law and best practices and that the non-profit body has a reciprocal agreement with almost all the countries in the world.

“So in each country there is a society that does the same thing that we do out here,” explained Rose. 

“If you play Michael Jackson out here we have to collect and if they play Taurus Riley over there, they would collect just the same… and we both send money to each other.

“We actually earn foreign exchange. Last year alone we earn upwards of $30 million in foreign exchange when you convert it to Jamaican dollars.

“Another big contention is that people think we should be collecting only for recorded music. We also collect for live music, we collect for music that is played in the theatres and also on radio. So, JACAP collects for every form and type of music that is played.”