Senate passes new copyright law

THE SENATE has passed a new copyright law which will make it easier for Barbadian creatives to secure their intellectual property.

This includes extending by 20 years the copyright protections individuals have after they die.

The Copyright Bill, 2025, was passed after debate led by Minister of Energy and Business Senator Lisa Cummins.

She expects the changes to help Barbados capitalise on the opportunity to “grow the intellectual property industry, to be able to invest in the creative industry, to grow heritage, but also to look at the commercial opportunities for innovation, for intellectual property exploitation, and to be able to create and to give protection, most importantly, to our artists, our artisans and our creators of creative works”.

One significant change in the legislation is the shift from a 50 to a 70-year period during which the works of a creative has copyright after the person has passed.

“Under Section 10 of the original act, copyright . . . exists for the life of the author for only 50 calendar years after his death. So, the provisions were amended to bring them into line with the wording of Article 75 of the Berne Convention and Article 14 of the World Copyright Treaty. Therefore, we now move from 50 years to 70 years after the death of the author,” Cummins explained.

She also said the new Copyright Act “expands the category of individuals who can hold a copyright to include producers, performers and licensing bodies”.

“New provisions have been included . . . enumerating what those rights are for those new persons, so that they could exploit their creative art . . . and protect their works against infringement,” the minister said.

“It allows in the legislation as well for the expansion of the definition of works. In the existing legislation, works is defined as . . . a literary, dramatic, musical or artistic work, a sound recording, film, broadcast or cable programme, and the typographical arrangement of the published edition.

“This definition did not, we found, take into account modern and technological advancement as they relate to databases. So this new legislation takes into account the definition of work, bringing it in line with article five of the World Copyright Treaty, and therefore, it allows for detailed descriptions of the rights associated with computer programming.”

She noted that when the original copyright legislation and related treaties were crafted, “there was no such thing as [artificial intelligence] . . . and so we now need to make sure that we have the protections around our creatives”. (SC)