Features
Isaac Blackman losing $$$$
By Islandevents.com
Sep 17, 2006, 5:13

The hottest song presently scorching the airwaves across Trinidad and Tobago from the church hall to the dancehall is "To The Ceiling" by Isaac Blackman. The jamoo (a title coined by Blackman's father; Ras Shorty I, that basically means Jah's music) dance track has everyone from toddler to elder singing and dancing along on the streets, in maxis taxis, shops, clubs and yes churches. You see, Blackman is a Born Again Christian and his family's music is very popular in that arena.

Now one would believe that with such a mega hit on an artiste's plate he would be overjoyed and completely elated. The truth is, although Blackman is happy that his song is such a success and thanks God for this, he does still have to deal with some negative fallout created by the popularity of "To The Ceiling."

Blackman stated recently that the music pirates have caused him much distress as they have been enjoying the fruits of his labour as pirated CD's featuring "To The Ceiling" are selling like hot hops, while the original singles produced by him are for the most part sitting on the shelves. Blackman was even prompted to say that when his father sang the immortal anti-drug anthem, "Watch Out My Children," he was also warning his own kids of the music pirates.

Now, the majority of people really do not understand why artistes and music producers cry out against music piracy. People believe that once a song is popular enough to be stolen by music pirates it means that the artiste has to also be making money with his own CD sales as well as from performances generated by the popularity of the music. In reality this is not the case and also it is not the point. The artiste has invested thousands of dollars in the production of his or her music and deserves to reap all rewards from it.

Island Events did some research on just how much money Blackman has been losing out on because he has no access whatsoever to any of the profits being made by the music pirates. If you believe that he's only missing out on a couple hundred dollars. Think again. Blackman, like countless other artistes and songwriters has been denied quite a lot of money because these music pirates have stolen his music and duplicated it many times over to make thousands while he stands with nothing from their exploits.

There are roughly thirty music pirates sprinkled through the streets of Port of Spain. This does not count those located inside of stores. Each of these offer "To The Ceiling" featured on a conscious reggae compilation as well as on a gospel compilation. A conservative average of daily sales states that each music pirate sells ten units of each selection. That means twenty CD's featuring "To The Ceiling" sold by each of thirty pirates at twenty-five dollars per CD.

Therefore, because of the high demand for "To The Ceiling" each pirate makes five hundred dollars per day generated by sales initiated by that song. Multiply that five hundred dollars by thirty pirates in the city of Port of Spain and you have fifteen thousand dollars per day. Now we factor in pirates across the country in areas such as St James, San Juan, Curepe, Tunapuna, Arima, Sangre Grande, Chaguanas and San Fernando.

Multiply that fifteen thousand dollars from Port of Spain by just these eight regions and mind you there are many other areas we have not included, and we get a grand daily total of one hundred and twenty thousand dollars per day across Trinidad. That's how much money the pirates are making off of the music they have stolen.

Now we take a conservative three percent royalty that should have gone into Blackman's pocket for the distribution of his song and we see that the hardworking musician is losing three thousand, six hundred dollars ($3,600.00) per day. How would you like to be cheated out of that kind of money every day throughout your career?

Imagine going to work day after day and at the end of the month your salary comes up short and the boss says that someone came and claimed some of it as theirs. Well that's exactly what happens to an artiste every time you purchase a CD from a music pirate or give out burned copies of music to your friends. Love the music and the artistes too. The original "To The Ceiling" is available at music stores for about $45.00 and the album will soon be available.