117: The Gift & Curse of Music

As a child, Serge Turnier fell in love with the sounds of the carnival bands that would pass near his house in Port-au-Prince, Haiti. Now one of the top music producers in the country, Turnier is faced with the reality that Haitian law offers little protection for music copyrights and he must decide whether to quit the music business altogether, in order to provide financial security for his family.A musician is not even recognized as a real job here in Haiti. You're just nothing in eye of the law.  -- Serge Turnier, music producer and composer in HaitiOne of the basic jobs of every government is to protect property rights, meaning if you own this piece of land or you build this house, no one can just come and take those things from you. Property rights are pretty clear cut when it comes to things – like land and houses – but less so when it comes to ideas. Can someone really own an image, or own a song? Here in the United States, the answer is yes, absolutely. But that isn’t the case everywhere.The Gift and Curse of Music - Haiti’s Fight for Copyright - is the story of Serge Turnier, a music producer and composer in Port-au-Prince, Haiti. Just last year, he produced a half dozen carnival songs himself, working with top artists in the Haitian music industry. But what he didn’t realize in his childhood dreams, was that Haitian law does not protect copyrights for songs, making it almost impossible to make money from recorded music. Suggested Reading and Viewing: Democracy of Sound, Music Piracy and the Remaking of American Copyright in the Twentieth Century, Alex Sayf Cummings Good Copy, Bad Copy (2007) Copyright and Culture, The Documentary Network The Gift and Curse of Music - Haiti’s fight for Copyright, was reported and produced by Ian Coss. Tony Gannon and Nancy Mullane co-edited the story. Our Senior Producer is Tony Gannon. Our Post Production Editors are Kirsten Jusewicz-Haidle and Rachael Cain. Jim Bennett at KQED Radio in San Francisco was our engineer. Original music in this episode was composed by Ian Coss, with additional music provided by Powersurge. Special thanks to the the organization Ayiti Mizik, which supported our research on the Haitian copyright system and to the podcast Afropop Worldwide who co-produced this episode with Life of the Law. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices