Barbadian musician, cultural administrator and businessman Pierce Antonio Rudder has called for a new era of respect for intellectual property rights in Barbados and the wider Caribbean, warning that the region’s creative industries cannot thrive without proper recognition and compensation for creators. Rudder issued the challenge yesterday as he received an honorary Doctor of Literature (D.Litt) degree during the University of the West Indies (UWI) Cave Hill Campus graduation ceremony...
“We have no respect for the owners of copyright and we seem not to understand the true value and the need to protect the rights of authors and publishers,” Rudder told the graduating class of 2025. “It is there; we use it. We have become a free use society.”
He said while copyright had long been a cornerstone of global economic growth, the Caribbean continued to lag behind in both understanding and enforcing those protections. Pointing to examples such as the United Kingdom’s 1710 Statute of Anne and the United States’ 1790 Copyright Act, Rudder reminded graduates that the concept was centuries old and essential to modern wealth creation.
