LAST year, some well-known Jamaican artists ended up in Trinidad’s courts for breaching contracts with show promoters in that country.
It cost the artists, Anthony B, Jah Cure and Busy Signal, a pretty penny.
Gloria De Clou, a Kingston attorney, says entertainers should be more responsible when it comes to dealing with contractual matters.
“They need legal advice. They need proper advice before they sign any document,” she told the Jamaica Observer.
De Clou, who is from Guyana, has been a general practitioner for 10 years. She worked in the attorney general’s office before going into private practice.She has advised several Jamaican artists including Carl Dawkins as well as Kingston Music Institute, a management company out of Canada.
Too many artists, she believes, are eager to sign contracts before reading them. The result is usually legal troubles with promoters, shady managers and publishers.
“The big problem is that they (artists) don’t like to read, and some of these documents are voluminous. Contracts are not as straightforward…It’s when things go awfully wrong that you know a breach has occurred,” De Clou said.
There are many stories, going back to the 1960’s, of Jamaican artists being exploited by lawyers, producers, promoters and managers, due to ignorance.
Since the late 1980’s, music industry figures and government agencies have staged many seminars to educate artists and musicians about their rights and the importance of acquiring sound legal representation.
De Clou believes the seminars have had little impact.
“They don’t help the artists, I can tell you from experience. The majority of them will tell you they were given something to sign and they did…That’s where the problems begin.”
You must log in to post a comment.