The PROblem with our music industry

by Tiffany Strachan

Grenadian music resonates beyond our shores. Our interpretations of groovy and power soca, as well as our original jab-jab soca, reach not only our diaspora but also countries with citizens eager to visit Grenada for our music and culture.

This past Spicemas 2025, “The Best Mas by Far,” brought Grenadian music to a new level. Social media influencers now say Bacchanal Friday’s Soca Monarch is a must on the Spicemas calendar, and the songs that qualify for the finals, along with the winners and others, make it beyond the stadium. Our hits played on the road for Carnival Monday and Tuesday, at parties throughout the season, on Spicemas patrons’ heavy rotations, and at many carnival festivals after Grenada’s, such as Notting Hill in the UK and Labour Day in the US. However, despite this popular success, not even 2 carnival seasons guarantee artistes financial stability.

Dexter Mitchell raised this issue on The Bubb Report, and Arley Gill and Alan Robinson discussed it on GBN’s Beyond the Headlines. The problem is not a lack of plays, engagement, or effort, but systemic improper statute enforcement and a lack of infrastructure that denies creators meaningful compensation. Since Lil Natty and Thunda’s hit “Top Striker” took the Caribbean and its diaspora by storm, one would expect that such popularity would generate meaningful royalties through copyright and public performance rights. Yet this has not happened. This illustrates the deeper problem in our music industry: even the most successful songs do not yield the returns their creators are legally entitled to.

In Gill and Robinson’s interview on Beyond the Headlines, they expressed concern for the ability of artistes to (1) protect their works, and (2) earn from the fetes in which they perform. Mitchell echoed this concern, speaking of artistes “being broke” after the carnival season ends, even though they had a hit. To address the first concern, the Beyond guests spoke about “registering their copyright with an organisation like COTT in Trinidad.” While this is a valid concern and a correct notion, Gill and Robinson conflated 2 ideas: owning the rights to your creation and managing how your music is performed publicly. This distinction leads directly into the next pressing problem with the local music industry.

Musical composition protection under the Copyright Act

According to the Grenada Copyright Act (Act 21 of 2011), copyright is defined as “a property right which subsists in literary and artistic works, that are original intellectual creations in the literary and artistic domain.” The act goes on to state “that Works shall be protected by the sole fact of their creation, and irrespective of their mode or form of expression, as well as of their content, quality and purpose.” Simply put, the moment an artiste-songwriter writes a song, they own it. “Registering a copyright” involves registering a copyrighted work with the local intellectual property office to receive a confirming document that states the creator is indeed the author and owner of the registered work. However, Grenada does not have a registration system for copyrighted works. The webpage for the Corporate Affairs and Intellectual Property Office (CAIPO) on the government’s website straightforwardly states there is “no copyright registration requirement,” reflecting the legislative language. Thus, at present, there is no way to register a copyright in Grenada. As a result, one way to register a copyright is through the US Copyright Office, which will protect the work under US and Grenadian law; I will elaborate below. To clarify, what Gill and Robinson meant to refer to is registering musical works with a performing rights organisation/society to allow creators to receive a return on their creative investments.

Performing rights organisations/societies

Under the Copyright Act, the owner or author of a copyrighted work is entitled to exclusive rights, including the right to authorise or prohibit public performance. This covers not only an artist performing their own work on stage, but also when their work is played by radio stations, at fetes and festivals, and in restaurants, bars, and hotel lobbies. It is impractical for an artist to visit every promoter, radio station, event, and restaurant, etc., to grant permission for every work they own. Therefore, music composers and lyricists register themselves and their works with performing rights organisations (PROs) or societies (PRSs), whose purpose is to collect royalties from the public use of their music. These organisations act as intermediaries between songwriters and the businesses that use their music. Instead of tracking down every venue, artiste-songwriters can register with a PRO, which issues blanket public performance licenses, collects fees, and distributes royalties to songwriters. This simplifies payment for artistes and legal music use for businesses.

PROs exist worldwide: the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers (ASCAP) and Broadcast Music, Inc. (BMI) in the United States, the Performing Rights Society for Music (PRS for Music) in the United Kingdom, and the Society of Authors, Composers and Publishers of Music (SACEM) in France. In the OECS, the responsible PRO is the Eastern Caribbean Collective Organisation for Music Rights (ECCO), headquartered in St Lucia.

As of 2025, ECCO represents 39 Grenadian songwriters and music publishers, serving as the equivalent of the Copyright Music Organisation of Trinidad and Tobago (COTT). This is the organisation to which Gill and Robinson refer. Registering a musical work with ECCO or COTT is not “registering a copyright,” since no such system exists under Grenadian law. Instead, it means registering the song and giving the PRO exclusive, term-limited permission to issue public performance licenses and collect royalties on behalf of the songwriters. Essentially, artistes give them the right to collect for one of their exclusive rights under the law.

For the 2022–2023 soca season, statistics showed 34% of Grenadian artiste-songwriters were affiliated with ECCO, 34% not affiliated, 17% with BMI (USA), 9.4% with COTT, 2.8% with PRS for Music (UK), 1.9% with ASCAP (USA), and 0.9% with IMRO (Ireland). ECCO has reciprocal agreements with PROs worldwide, including those mentioned above, allowing them to share resources and license worldwide repertoire for public performance, broadcast, cable transmission, and online and mobile use. They also collect fees by issuing licenses to music users. Additionally, they plan to perform similar tasks for related rights of producers and performers of sound recordings. Even if artiste-songwriters are affiliated with another PRO like ASCAP, BMI, or PRS, ECCO must collect in the OECS on their behalf and then send those monies for payment to their registrants.

Grenadian artistes and songwriters collectively forfeit hundreds of thousands of dollars each year due to unpaid licenses. This highlights the urgent need for business owners and legislators to address the widespread issue of unpaid public performance licenses. This brings us to the crux of the problem.

The PROblem with our music industry

Although ECCO is not statutorily the exclusive body for public performance rights administration, it actively promotes the purchase of music licenses, offering blanket licenses, per-event licenses, streaming licenses, and ringtone licenses. However, businesses and radio stations rarely purchase these licenses. For example, a local restaurant owner who pipes recorded music through their establishment was unaware of the need for a music license, despite having paid for alcohol licenses, taxes, and dues. Clearly, stakeholders have not effectively enforced licensing requirements for the public performance of music. This results in a significant gap in copyright licensing enforcement, leaving creators unpaid while their works continue to be used. The PRO system operates on a pay-per-play basis; without license payments, songwriters — whether established or emerging — receive no royalties for public performances of their work.

When businesses fail to pay their licenses, Grenadian songwriters/artistes do not receive payment. The performing rights organisation system is a pay-per-play system, where each songwriter receives payment per public performance. However, if there is no payment for the license, all songwriter/artistes receive $0.

The failure to purchase public performance licenses also has international repercussions. As aforementioned, ECCO has reciprocal agreements to collect on behalf of other international PROs. Since 1998, Grenada, along with all the sovereign OECS territories, has been a signatory to the Berne Convention, an international copyright treaty. The expectation is that when an artist protects their work in their country of origin, the work is protected in other signatory countries, including the exclusive right of public performance. The Berne Convention, as well as the fact that not every PRO in the world can have a sub-office or agent in every country, drives the aforementioned reciprocal agreements. Under the Berne Convention and the reciprocal agreements, every songwriter is supposed to get paid, right? The reality, however, is different. Because ECCO is a privately held company headquartered in St Lucia, it does not have sub-offices on each island from which it is supposed to collect. Instead, it appoints agents, part-time workers who are expected to execute the complete tasks of the PRO.

For businesses like banks, supermarkets, and restaurants, licensing should be relatively straightforward, with an agent able to issue and renew licenses on behalf of the PRO. Yet it appears from March 2022 through early 2025, Grenada lacked an active ECCO agent. If this were the case, it would mean most licenses went unpaid, royalties uncollected, and artistes uncompensated — raising questions about Grenada’s compliance with the Berne Convention. Such lapses, if verified, could undermine creators’ rights and expose Grenada to diplomatic liabilities. As a result, the Berne Convention really burns here. If public performance royalties continue to go uncollected, Grenada could be seen as falling short of its commitments under the Berne Convention. While the immediate consequence is that artistes lose out, such gaps also risk damaging Grenada’s credibility as a treaty signatory, potentially raising reputational or diplomatic concerns with international partners. Highlighting these diplomatic and economic implications can exert further pressure on government officials to ensure compliance and uphold the standards expected in the global community.

Here, we are faced with 2 poignant issues: (1) Grenadian copyright owners’ public performance right is being disrespected and thus their copyright infringed, and (2) the lack of public enforcement and private compliance risks breach of an almost 30-year-old treaty Grenada has with 180 other countries. This must change now. It is not enough to recognise the problem; we need collective and immediate action from the Government of Grenada, music stakeholders, businesses, and the wider public to enforce the law that has been on the books since before the first Groovy Monarch. Demand the enforcement of public performance rights and hold those responsible accountable. Only then will Grenadian artistes finally receive the compensation they deserve for their talent and hard work.

Tiffany Strachan is a post-graduate entertainment law student at Loyola Law School in Los Angeles, California, where she serves as a Staff Writer and News & Insights Contributor for the Loyola of Los Angeles Entertainment Law Review. A graduate of Berklee College of Music (B.M. in Contemporary Writing and Production and Music Business/Management), she is also an arranger-producer and music business consultant, known for her works, including “The Nutmeg Suite” and “The Monarch”.