conducive to investment and growth in legitimate Internet-related businesses, services, and technologies.
Copyright-Related Challenges in the Caribbean Region
The United States continues to express serious concerns regarding copyright protection and enforcement in the Caribbean region. (See Section II and the 2014 Special 301 Report for a more detailed discussion). The United States has raised these issues at meetings of the Caribbean Community and Common Market (CARICOM) in 2013 and 2014, and looks forward to continuing to engage on these challenges with CARICOM and its member governments, and with other trading partners whose markets present these challenges. The following is a summary of U.S. concerns in CARICOM (and associated) markets:
U.S. musical works are being publicly performed by radio and TV broadcasting stations without obtaining licenses from the appropriate public performances rights organizations (PROs). This problem has been reported again this year in Antigua and Barbuda, Barbados, Belize, Dominica, Grenada, Guyana, Jamaica, St. Lucia, and St. Vincent and the Grenadines. In some cases, the alleged infringing broadcaster is licensed by the government or is government-owned, which makes such actions even more troubling.
Cable operators and television and radio broadcasters, some government-owned (e.g., in Barbados), reportedly refuse to negotiate with the PROs for compensation for public performances of music. PROs also assert that they have struggled to advance their legal claims in the local courts and, even when successful, cannot obtain payments. These problems have been reported in Barbados, Jamaica, and Trinidad and Tobago as well as Antigua and Barbuda, Belize, Dominica, Grenada, Guyana, St. Lucia, and St. Vincent and the Grenadines.
With regard to cable and satellite broadcasting of copyrighted network programming, although Antigua and Barbuda, Barbados, Belize, Dominica, Grenada, Jamaica, St. Kitts and Nevis, Saint Lucia, and St. Vincent and the Grenadines currently maintain a statutory licensing regime that includes a requirement to pay royalties to rights holders, reportedly, royalties are not being paid. Other countries in the region, including Anguilla, the Cayman Islands, Dominica, Montserrat, and the Turks and Caicos Islands, do not maintain statutory licensing regimes and reportedly fail to intercede when unauthorized entities, many of them government-owned, intercept and retransmit copyrighted content without remuneration. Satellite signal theft remains a serious concern in these countries as well.
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