By Emmanuel Narokobi

{Update 6/9/08: Please Note That CHM Compensated Us Earlier this Year for this Incident and  so We Hold no Grudges Against Them Now}

A friend of mine by the name of Brendan Walsh and I made a film called “Hans Up, Betelnut or Your Life!” Now just a couple of hours ago CHM played our movie  on their show on Hitron’s Channel 9. Now what the fuck is that??!!! Who the hell gave them the right to show our film without getting Authorisation from us? We weren’t advised nor were we paid anything for them using our film.

Haven’t they been the very ones that have been harping on about Intellectual Property, etc. This is them in the National newspaper earlier this year:

“ “Like many APEC economies and Pacific island countries, piracy has plagued the PNG music industry and for CHM, it meant drop in sales,” Mr Kila [Henry Kila, chairman of the Business Council of PNG addressing the 2007 APEC conference in Port Moresby], said.
And for this reason, the company has embarked on a two-tier strategy identifying the importance of copyright protection.
CHM conducted workshops for stakeholders and such efforts provided a reality check to the stakeholders on the challenges piracy brings to the industry.
“Discussions with them showed that it wasn’t just economic loss from piracy, but the linkage to the negative impacts on investing into creativity,” Mr Kila said.
He said the second CHM strategy was proactive engagement with law enforcement agencies in investigating, prosecuting and constructing punitive measures of copyright infringers.”

What a load of crap! And then more recently the attended a Music Copyright summit in Brisbane where they were guest speakers. And then they go leading raids on music like this:

“The Institute of Papua New Guinea Studies was raided after a month-long Chin Hoi Meen (CHM) led-investigation, following reports that the institute was allegedly producing re-recordings of music recorded years ago….

Mr. Chin went on to say “Our concern is for the music industry. There is so many (pirating, duplication, reproduction) in the music industry and we cannot stop it. The musicians depend on the sales of the cassettes,” Mr Chin said, adding that when the cassettes, after recording are sold, a portion of the sale goes back to the artists and if such activities continue, the artists will lose as they will not benefit from the sales“

So where the hell are our royalties, it may be a film but it sure as hell is the same as music. What a bunch of hypocrites. They can expect a letter tomorrow morning from Narokobi Lawyers.