THE EDITOR, Madam:
I am writing this letter about the American reggae group SOJA who won the Grammy Award for best reggae album, beauty in silence.
Copyright law in the United States of America is one of the tools that voting members of the Grammy Recording Academy use to decide who will receive a Grammy Award. Members are made up of artists, producers and musicians. So they understand how to judge music.
Music copyright law protects expression. The original works of the author. For example, the lyrics of a song or an original musical work.
On the other hand, copyright laws do not protect “genre”, which is a type of communication – such as reggae, rap, jazz or classical music, to name a few – one.
Additionally, music copyright laws do not incorporate the nationality or nations of an individual or group of individuals, in order to win a Grammy Award.
Therefore, since copyright laws do not protect “gender” and “nationality”, any individual or group of individuals in the world can create any type of music.
So just because the reggae genre originated in Jamaica does not mean that only Jamaicans can produce a reggae album or sing reggae songs.
Also, there are many Grammy winners from other countries. Pakistani singer Arooj Aftab won a Grammy for world best musical performance for her song Mohabbat (love).
CARGILL-KELLY
