Killing Mas...

The more I learn about the players and their intentions in this infernal Carnival copyright fiasco the harder it is to move away from the analogy of killing the goose that lays the golden egg. Something has to be terribly, terribly wrong here when so many people are allowed to jam their hands into the taxpayers pockets for ostensibly the same exact thing, don't you think? And this one? This one just reeks of someone just looking to hustle a payday, doesn't it? Sort of like trying to have someone pay for the cake that you intend to eat all of, the NCDF has stepped up and, together with (what is appearing more and more to be their 'muscle') the TTCCO, are insisting on claiming rights to the images and other proceeds of carnival that should be the rightful property of the owners and funders of carnival, the people of Trinidad & Tobago. Now before every amateur artist with a copyright toothache gets all in a huff, stop and think for a minute what having multiples of people posting and sharing videos and pictures of Trinidad & Tobago Carnival does for it as a business, for the future of the mas, as encouragement for many more visitors to come play mas here, as incentives for further development.

We compete within a multi-billion dollar global Carnival industry with other countries, many of whom have far superior products, much more sophisticated marketing machinery and far less deterring headaches (crime, poor customer service etc), and who are more than happy to benefit from our bungling mistakes. Just type the words 'Carnival Pics' into any search engine and in about point four of a second it returns four million results. For those who do not understand what that means, imagine if you went to a travel agency and told them that you were interested in going somewhere for carnival and they gave you four million brochures to look through, the equivalent of forty thousand telephone directories. Now if Trinidad's brochures were in that pile, wouldn't we want as many of those four million to be ours to increase the odds that the traveller would even know we and our our festival exists? Of course. So by stopping the average masquerader or spectator who were posting pictures and uploading carnival videos from doing so, what we did was go into that pile and, instead of adding more, removed what was there. All except for the one flimsy dog eared one that the Tourist Board saw it fit to leave in. Now contrast that with the people of Brazil, who  associate their entire identity with their carnival and, as everything (even their football) is Carnival to them, they are not only the first three million results in that pile, they are outside the travel agency trying to get in to add more. Understand what we just allowed to happen?

But what about Carnival as art? Surely we need to protect our intellectual property and originality, don't we? Really? Long ago finished as an art, our Carnival costumes have become comic fodder to comedians who never tire of telling that this band's costume this year -  Blue Lagoon was that band's offering for last year – Blue Cupcake. When mas band Tribe used a Shutterbug image in their design without even modifying it to at least pretend, it garnered a few chuckles but no outcry, so far were we along the road of understanding what our mas has become. Yes we mourn for Minshall and 'big up' Mac Farlane, but we've traded in the art of Carnival for a street party a while now, so no, nothing about our Carnival is original anymore and no, nothing about it is art.

What it is about is money. Bikini and beads Carnival is a HUGE money spinner and as the bandleaders are raking it in by the tens of millions hand over fist, the question has to be asked (especially as it is no longer culture), why are we still funding it? If Carnival is such a lucrative business, why is the taxpayer still footing the bill?

The TTCCO has put forward a position that any image of the mas is intellectual property but I put to them that that is not so, that without the masquerader it is just so much fabric, feathers and glue, and perhaps that should be where the conversation begins; the acceptance that without the masquerader there is no 'art' because who wants a picture of an empty costume? And if the masquerader makes the mas, and the mas band benefits from the masquerader's use of their costume and their choice of that band, shouldn't the band leaders want MORE people promoting their wares and not less? Even if, God forbid, some low life scum graphic artist uses a carnival image to make some money, isn't he also still promoting Trinidad mas?

So where do we go from here? How do we clean up this embarrassing mess? Clearly the NCDF is a good idea gone bad, and instead of forming multiples of organizations the bandleaders need to decide who they are, what they hope to achieve and bring that to the people for discussion.

It is my view that putting ANY restrictions on the use of carnival pictures and content under the current funding scenario ought not to even be entertained for all the reasons outlined here and more. If the NCDF intends to pursue this course of action then I propose that the people should instruct the government to cease funding the mas, and to put in place mechanisms to charge the bands for use of the roads, for the security apparatus, for the support systems, and for the clean up afterward, just so they understand what pettiness sounds like coming back the other way. Perhaps looked at from the perspective of how good they have it now as opposed to how bad it could be they may see sense enough to back away from this foolish, heavy handed and greedy enterprise. Either way the conversation has to be had and decisions have to be made, and it would be much better for all concerned if it was done sooner rather than later.