Who is popular today?

J’Ouvert.
It's an intrinsic part of our culture and heritage. From the Canboulay riots to the yearly social commentary that comes with the pantomime of ole mas, J’Ouvert is a representation of TT’s history, identity and soul.
The majority of TT’s population takes part in some form of the festival in the Carnival season – whether in the hills of Paria where blue devils beat on modified Crix biscuit pans, or in Port of Spain, San Fernando and other areas of TT where bands are organised to revel in the morning dew covered in mud or oil or paint; or even after the Carnival season in private parties that finish at daybreak.
But come Carnival Monday night, TT citizens, for the most part, would put J’Ouvert up on a shelf until the next year.
Unless somebody wants to use the word to name or describe a product that is not made in TT.
Enter US actor and producer Michael B Jordan, and his new rum, which he'd planned to name J'Ouvert. TT, despite its usual seasonal consideration for the name, put its foot down and said: “that is we ting.”
Trinis know Jordan for his role as Killmonger in the Black Panther movie.
What they didn't seem to know is that Jordan has invested in a bar on Manhattan’s Lower East Side in New York. The bar is called Las' Lap, another nod to TT's Carnival festivities.
Do a Google search for las lap and you'd get, not a reference to the frenetic rush of activities that signal the end of Carnival, but a link to the bar. A bar which serves drinks with names like Las' Rum Punch, Jammin, Guyana Storm and Air Jamaica. Carib beer is served.
The hasikara that came from the attempt to brand Jordan's rum J'Ouvert proves one thing – TT has been neglecting its culture for some time, something that other countries do not do. TT needs to claim its culture through trademarking its cultural names and intellectual property and if it doesn’t, then someone else will.
[caption id="attachment_898175" align="alignnone" width="473"] Michael B Jordan's J'Ouvert rum package included a note on Trinidad Carnival. -[/caption]
This isn’t the first run-in TT has had with failing to protect its intellectual property. In 2002, there was a fit of cultural rage when the news broke that two Americans – George Whitmyre and Harvey J Price – were granted the patent for the production of the Caribbean steelpan.
The news came to TT a year after the patent was granted, on April 10, 2001.
The patent covered a mechanised process which used a mould to mass produce steelpans out of stainless steel. One of the problems which musicians encountered with the American steelpans was that they could not maintain their notes for a long period of time.
Then in 2013, TT patented the G-Pan with Dr Brian Copeland as the inventor. (Copeland is currently principal of the University of the West Indies St Augustine campus.) Six years later, in 2019, the patent for the American manufacturing process lapsed under fee-related grounds.
Two Sundays ago, Jordan, released images of his rum brand on social media. The product's display included bottles of Angostura Bitters, schematics of the islands of TT, a written reference to Trinidad and how to pronounce the word. After Angostura distanced itself and the brand bore the backlash of TT’s cultural sector for the better part of a week, Jordan apologised and promised to change the name.
Registration of the name J'Ouvert at the US trademark and patent office did not mean that Jordan would have automatic rights to the name in TT, as registration of a name is not jurisdictional. This means that registration in one country does not prevent its use by another entity in another country, unless it is recognised as a "well known" name.
But TT did have the right to oppose the use of the name on the grounds of cultural appropriation, which is the use of a name, symbol, object, trait, feature or attribute which is associated with and can identify a particular group of people.
Trademark law, at its core, is designed to avoid confusion with regard to the source of a product or service, and to protect the goodwill that the owner of the trademark garnered through the mark. A trademark by definition needs to be distinctive enough to separate it from similar goods and services and identifiable as the symbol of that product or service.
Some tools provided by trademark law to counter cultural appropriation include the availability of collective marks and certification marks. Collective marks can be an indication of products and services provided by the organisation or group. Certification marks are used to identify works of a particular product type, regional context or workmanship origin.
Trademark law also provides tools like opposition proceedings, cancellation proceedings and infringement actions. Opposition and cancellation proceedings could be started to prevent a trademark being issued by any person or group that believes it would be damaged by the registration of that mark. An affected group does not necessarily have to own exclusive rights to the marks. Affected groups can bring challenges on the basis that the mark would be falsely associated with people, institutions, beliefs or symbols of an individual.
[caption id="attachment_898145" align="alignnone" width="932"] Pan Trinbago president Beverly Ramsey-Moore - PHOTO BY ANGELO MARCELLE[/caption]
While there should have been more research done on the part of Jordan’s team, Pan Trinbago president, Beverly Ramsey-Moore said TT should not have met Jordan’s idea with a closed door. She said TT should have seen it as an opportunity to promote the culture and TT on the whole.
“Anything that would market TT culture is something that I would support,” Ramsey Moore said. “J’Ouvert means a lot to us in TT. Our leadership, the people in the ministries could have reached out and had a conversation with Jordan’s team, to see how both parties could have benefited.”
Lutalo “Brother Resistance” Masimba, president of the Trinbago Unified Calypsonians' Organisation (Tuco), added that making a deal with Jordan’s team was one way that could have benefited both, without burning the bridge.
“We could have had a conversation with Jordan’s team to find out what kind of investment he could have made in Carnival 2022 through the brand,” he said. “But that would have had to depend on several mitigating factors.” (There was no Carnival this year owing to the covid19 pandemic and Government has not made any decision on if Carnival will take place next year as its focus continues to be its vaccination programme, the Prime Minister said recently.)
[caption id="attachment_898150" align="alignnone" width="880"] Lutalo Masimba, president of the Trinbago Unified Calypsonians Organisation. -[/caption]
But attorney Carla Parris, executive producer and host of Web-Based TV programme, The Business of Carnival said the opportunity has not been missed. She said TT now has the opportunity to strategise and propose a brand partnership contract which would set clear deliverables and obligations which would proffer commercial benefit to the country.
“It is important to understand that culture and commerce are not mutually exclusive. I have long advocated for the business of endorsement and brand partnership deals to buttress the global growth of our Caribbean traditions and innovations and have participated in negotiating several such deals over the years.
Once these deals are negotiated in such a way that our intellectual property, culture and economy simultaneously prosper, then we all win.”
Ramsey-Moore said the J’Ouvert rum debacle should serve as a wake-up call to TT, to put proper investment in culture before someone else recognises its value and takes it away.
Being part of one of the largest earning sectors in the creative industry, she said TT needs to take note and ensure that it can identify its cultural products.
“TT culture brings millions of dollars in revenue for this country each year. People buy plane tickets, stay at hotels, attend shows and festivals events all based around TT’s culture.”
“A country that is rich in culture should invest in it,” she said.
Masimba said calypso has taken the TT brand of culture and Carnival around the world. Way before Calypso Rose and Bunji Garlin got recognition, singers like Roaring Lion, Kitchener, Sparrow had taken TT’s culture worldwide.
Masimba said one place to start is for TT to complete a list of cultural products to submit to UNESCO, to be listed in the Intangible Cultural Heritage database.
[caption id="attachment_898143" align="alignnone" width="1024"] J'Ouvert revellers on Carnival Monday in Port of Spain on February 24, 2020. - PHOTO BY ROGER JACOB[/caption]
TT was among 136 countries to sign on to a convention which would see the preservation of items of intangible cultural heritage. On October 17 2003, UNESCO set up a register which would list cultural practices to safeguard cultural heritage, ensure the respect for intangible cultural heritage, raise awareness and provide for international co-operation and assistance in the preservation of the cultures of each country. They identified “cultural heritage as the practices, representations, knowledge, skills, artefacts and cultural spaces that communities use to identify who they are as a people."
In June 2013, government and NGOs began compiling an inventory of intangible cultural heritage products. Up to 2020 TT had not submitted a report.
A check on the UNESCO website showed that the report originally due on December 15, 2016 was postponed to December 15 of this year. Another note listed TT’s report on the implementation of the goals in the convention as “under process.”
Masimba said this registration could prove as a collective mark which would be the start of protecting our culture from appropriation.
“TT has been working on that list for more than 10 years. It shouldn’t take that long to identify the things that we want to put on that list.”
He said calypso and jab (devil mas) both have roots in slavery and there was movement among the Caribbean islands, so islands would share cultural practices, but with the registration in UNESCO’s Intangible Cultural Heritage list, TT would be able to put a stamp on its style of the practices.
But for now, Ramsey-Moore said, TT has to get its house in order. She said Pan Trinbago is currently conducting consultations on the way forward to put an identifying stamp on the particular cultural products that Pan Trinbago regulates.
“In terms of J’Ouvert, Panorama, and other cultural products we should take this as a lesson learnt.”
Ways to protect a country's creativity
Geographical indications:
A sign used to identify products and services that have a specific geographical origin and possesses qualities or a reputation that are due to that origin. Geographical indications enables those who have rights to the product or service to prevent its use by a third party whose product does not conform to the applicable standards.
Patent:
The granting of a property right by a sovereign authority to an inventor. The grant provides the inventor the exclusive rights to the patented process, design or invention for a designated period in exchange for comprehensive disclosure of the invention.
Trademark:
Any word, phrase, symbol, design or a combination of these things that identifies goods and services. Trademarks define a product or service and helps guard against counterfeiting.
Copyright:
A type of intellectual property that protects original works of authorship as soon as the author fixes the work in a tangible form of expression. Copyright law includes different types of works like paintings, photographs, illustrations, musical compositions, sound recordings, computer programs, poems, blog posts etc.
 
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