by Sunity Maharaj
Re-published with the expressed permission of the author
A big lagniappe of Carnival 2013 was the duel over rights in which value creators squared off against value appropriators.
It's been a long time in coming, but in the knowledge economy of the 21st century, it was only a matter of time before the simmering pot would start boiling over.Naturally, industries that have been built on unrestricted access and exploitation of the value created by others, are not happy. While they didn't quite articulate the point, one assumes that such industries see themselves as part of the value creation chain by virtue of their investment in promoting and commodifying creative work.
For that, they would feel entitled to a return. So, now, with the gloves effectively off, let the negotiations begin!
Hopefully, the debate that raged so uproariously leading up to Carnival has not left town with the Merry Monarch. Nor should it be left only to the lawyers representing Carnival and media interests.
In an age when the trans-global knowledge sector is a significant area of economic growth, intellectual property rights are at the top of the international agenda. For us in Trinidad and Tobago however, the issue extends far beyond the boundary of Carnival's legal quagmire to the old, enduring issue of justice.
In the 18th and 19th centuries it was sugar; in the 20th century it was oil and now in the 21st century with the dramatic monetisation of intellectual and cultural capital, the business of resource exploitation is shifting again, this time to the creative sector.
This is neither new to us nor is the term 'exploitation' necessarily a reference to something bad.
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