ECCO to chart way forward for copyright material

Plans to license users of copyrights music in St Vincent and the Grenadines are being taken a step further.{{more}}

Tonight, Steve Etienne, General Manager of the Eastern Caribbean Collective Organisation for Music Rights (ECCO), will meet managers of some broadcasting stations, cable television and other users of copyrights music at the Peace Memorial Hall to chart the way forward on the license issue. The meeting starts at 8:00 p.m.

ECCO was registered in St.Vincent and the Grenadines earlier this year.

It is an association of composers and publishers of musical works which administers on behalf of its members the performing right within the musical works that are assigned to it.

By virtue of a network of reciprocal agreements with affiliated societies all over the world, ECCO’s repertoire comprises not only the works of its own members but virtually all copyrighted musical works existing today.

ECCO issues annually renewable licences to broadcasters, cable operators and premises which play copyrights music to the public, from concert venues and discotheques, to hotels, bars, banks, cinemas, shops and offices.

In return for a modest royalty payment, licensees are entitled to unlimited access to virtually the entire copyrights music repertoire in the world today and saved from the impossible task of contacting and negotiating with individual composers, authors and publishers.

ECCO has the mandate to administer the performing right in its repertoire in St Vincent and the Grenadines and the rest of the OECS.

It is governed by a board of directors comprising persons from throughout the OECS with agents in each territory. Vincentian Joffre Venner is a member of the Board of Directors of ECCO.