Monthly Archive

By Emmanuel Narokobi

Now’s the chance to buy your very own airline, or at least part of it is what the ads in the papers are saying about the upcoming listing of Airlines PNG. So the Wild family have now embarked on a new chapter in the history of their airline in seeking K105 million kina from the IPO.

I should be getting my prospectus tomorrow and I’m keen to see how they want to expand. If they plan to open an international terminal in Rabaul or Alotau then I see good things happening for our tourism industry. Maybe an investment in a service and maintenance facility based in PNG to service airplanes in the South Pacific region without having to fly all the way to Australia or New Zealand. Maybe an investment in a pilot school to supply the world with top class pilots like the ones currently in places like the Emirates.

All in all a welcome development in our business landscape and a chance for the Mum’s and Dad’s to invest in a growing PNG/Australia company.

But it begs the question, if half of the company will potentially be owned by Papua New Guineans then which Airline in PNG belongs more to the people?

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If your keen to get some shares see the info below from Jason Gilai of BSP Capital.

Airlines PNG (APNG), an airline company with national and international routes and synonymous with Papua New Guinea’s (PNG) expanding airline industry, is Listing on the Port Moresby Stock Exchange (POMSox), on 23rd June 2008. The owners of APNG are offering 50% of the company, ie. 105 Million shares, to potential investors and the public in Papua New Guinea; the offer opened on 30th April 2008 and will close on 06th June 2008.

The application price for investing into APNG shares is K1.00 and each potential investor may apply for a minimum parcel of 2,000 shares or a higher number of shares in multiples of 100. Thus, a minimum investment of K2,000 is an equitable value for investing into an airlines company that is being competitive within PNG’s airline industry through expansion of its capacity, passenger numbers and routes serviced.

In terms of the POMSox Listing for APNG, they have appointed Pacific Nominees Ltd. as Advisor to the Issuer, Kina Securities Ltd. as Appointed Broker to the Issue, PNG Registries Ltd. as Registrar, Deloitte Touch Tohmatsu as Auditors, O’Briens as Lawyers and Bank of South Pacific Ltd as APNG’s designated Bank.

If you would like to acquire the Prospectus for the APNG IPO on behalf of yourself or your organisation, please contact me and I will acquire a copy for you and send onto you asap. Once you sight the prospectus and make the decision to invest into APNG, please fill out the application on the back of the Prospectus and write a bank cheque/bank draft to “Airlines of Papua New Guinea Limited-Share Offer” for the said amount to be invested. With the filled application and bank cheque, please pass it onto me at BSP Capital Ltd, level 2, Aon Haus, downtown Port Moresby; I will have it processed for you, on your behalf.

If you require further information on the APNG IPO, do not hesitate to contact me

Regards

Jason Gilai Director-Corporate Financial Services
BSP Capital Limited | 2nd Floor, AON House, Macgregor Street, PO Box 2017, Port Moresby, NCD 121.
Ph (675) 321 4333| Fax (675) 321 4577 | jgilai.bspcapital@bsp.com.pg

By Oala Moi

The existing Copyright and Neighboring Rights Act 2000 lists and protects exclusive economic and moral rights in favor of both copyright owners and owners of derivative works, and for the past 8 years, these rights remained dormant in the absence of a legal framework and entity to regulate compliance. This is about to change fundamentally under the proposed Copyrights and Neighboring Rights (Collective Management) regulations 2008.

These regulations form part of the Copyright and Neighboring Rights (Amendment) Bill 2008, which were discussed at length in Port Moresby at Holiday Inn hotel from 1st to 2nd May 2008 during the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) National Workshop on Copyright and Related Rights and Collective Management of Rights.

At the WIPO workshop, recording artists and songwriters joined legal practitioners and representatives from government agencies, educational institutions, and the book publishing, radio, television, and recording industries for an induction on copyright and its applications before deliberating on the Amendment Bill and regulations.

“It is high time we had a copyright industry in PNG,” workshop participant and copyright advocate Oala Moi Eno said. “I join others in commending the National Government through the Investment Promotion Authority and Intellectual Property Office of PNG for collaborating with the Constitutional Law Reform Commission to finalize legislation. I understand the Amendment Bill and regulations will now be put to the National Executive Council for its sanctioning and then Parliament for approval when it next meets. This has been a longtime coming after intense arguments in favor of copyright surfaced again in early 2000″, Oala added.

Oala now challenges creators of works in key cultural industries in PNG such as music and sound recording, print and publishing, film and television, visual arts and photography, and dramatic works and theatre, to consider the benefits of collective management of rights.

According to a WIPO publication, collective management of rights makes the work of artists, authors, and other creators available to the public on a large scale. Its role in economic development is also important:

the collective management system not only helps individuals make a living from their work, it builds upon and strengthens cultural industries as well. Authors and artists in many fields have established professional organizations - generally called collective management organizations (CMOs) - to manage their copyrights, to facilitate clearance of those rights, and to ensure that they obtain economic reward for their creative output.

“Copyright is a private right and the onus is on the beholder to listen, learn and act responsibly. I know of numerous newspaper reports citing breach of copyright allegations, but in all these we stakeholders failed to get up and educate ourselves on an important issue such as copyright.

Now with government and non-government support, we can work together to highlight the importance of copyright and underline the fact that creators of copyright works have a place in society, to create works for our education, our enjoyment, our enrichment, for improving the quality of our lives”, Oala said.

The Bill provides for different groups of copyright owners in the literary and artistic field to organize themselves and setup their respective CMOs.

There is already a preliminary group of songwriters, artists and musicians united as an industry body under the name, Music Industry Association (MIA). Oala is part of MIA’s interim committee and the Chairman of the Interim Committee is popular sound producer/engineer Mr. Digby Holeong.

Oala says that MIA was born in Port Moresby at the conclusion of the Workshop for Performers and Musicians on Copyright and Neighboring Rights in PNG, which ran from 15-17 April 2008 at the UPNG Art Gallery.

“The UPNG workshop was timely as it prepared Port Moresby-based copyright owners to actively participate in the WIPO workshop. I know that facilitators of the UPNG workshop tried to involve a cross representation of copyright owners from within the music industry based in Port Moresby. Due to funding constraints, the inclusion of other regions or networks was simply not possible (at that early stage), however be assured that given time and funding, our brother and sister copyright owners in the Highlands, Momase and New Guinea Islands regions will be given a timeframe and an opportunity to discuss the essential issues as determined by the Interim Committee of the MIA. Missing out or not participating at the WIPO National Workshop was never an option because it involved an issue that would shape and control our livelihood. However, I can say that in attending the National Workshop, we, as individuals and under the MIA banner, represented your interests at a time when it was not possible to have you attend in person and in time, we will come to you. MIA is currently working on a National plan which includes conducting IPR awareness and would embark on a membership drive in due course”, Oala added.

Meanwhile, an infant copyright industry will be born after it goes through the normal legislative process and the new Director of Copyrights and stakeholders covered by this legislation will be kept busy in their efforts to ensure that the PNG Collective Management System works for the country as well as for each stakeholder.

Email queries to oalasongs@hotmail.com

By Emmanuel Narokobi

I promised a handful of music lovers about a month and a half ago that I’d put up Oli Wilson’s paper on the recording industry in Port Moresby, so here it is below. He presented this paper on the 27th March this year at the University of Papua New Guinea.

Music and Culture is an enourmas field and I like how Oli has begun his research by trying to tackle one defined geographic location first before expanding his research. I can see this as a progressive work for him and I wouldn’t be surprised if he continuous developing his study in this field till he gets into his 30’s (cos he’s only 23 right now).

I’ll start below with his introduction and a couple of excerpts, but you can download the paper in PDF from the link further below. For researchers and students out there the paper has been accepted for publication in the Wanpisin: Journal of the School of Humanities and Social Sciences, University of Papua New Guinea.

Introduction

Over the last four months I have been collecting data on the recording industry in Port Moresby, as part of my fieldwork toward a PhD in ethnomusicology. I still have many months of fieldwork ahead of me, so this paper is not intended as a presentation of my research results, as any attempts to discuss or predict them here would inevitably be incomplete. Instead, this paper outlines the basis for research on music industry technology and cultural identity, and discusses why the recording industry in Port Moresby is a relevant and significant case study. I will begin by introducing the discipline of ethnomusicology from which this study draws its fundamental methods, and discuss how the study of popular music in particular, is a valuable means to investigate broader questions concerning popular culture and identity. I will explain some fundamental theories concerning popular music by summarising theories of Popular Culture and Mass Culture. I will also discuss how the term ‘tradition’ has been applied in studies of non-western popular music, arguing that an ambiguity, resulting from the over-use of this term both as theory and description, complicates the application of the above theories. I will conclude by considering how these theories may or may not apply to the music industry in Port Moresby, particularly with reference to how they relate to the construction and representation of cultural identity.

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…My own research is concerned with the social function of commercial music in a developing urban context, in particular, its capacity to construct and represent cultural identity.  In order to investigate this, I am studying how the music industry, and in particular, ‘globalised’ music technologies, influences contemporary notions of cultural identity in Port Moresby. To explain this further, I will discuss three related areas; music technology, the industry, and how these two influence and effect how music represents and constructs cultural identity…

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…These studies provide a relevant foundation for popular music research in PNG. However, they only focus on the guitar and ukulele, and we could be mistaken to believe that these instruments are the only technologies that drive the musical phenomena known as stringband. It is possible however, that the guitar was not the sole catalyst for the development of this style, and also that it was not the sole catalyst for changes in how music is perceived and organised by Papua New Guineans. Instead, the guitar must be considered as only one part of a process that includes many other elements, including human interaction, and other technology…

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…Therefore, when investigating the recording industry technologies that are impacting musical culture today, I must acknowledge that musical culture in PNG has already undergone considerable change, none of which can be attributed to a single event or technology. Developments in musical culture therefore can be seen as part of a long-standing trajectory of cultural change…

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…Port Moresby music industry is undergoing a digital revolution, where relatively affordable digital recording technologies are becoming commonplace. Port Moresby currently has at least twenty small digital recording studios that are all producing commercial music.  This drastically increases musicians’ access to recording technology, which dramatically increases the regularity with which commercial music is produced.  For example, I estimate that PNG produces 300-400 commercial recordings a year, which is a phenomenal number for a country of this size and demographic…

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…Papua New Guinea’s urban centres, such as Port Moresby, have a migrant population that is relatively new, and it would be difficult to argue that their residents are atomised to the extent that mass culture characterises urban subjects. It would appear that people’s social relationships are in fact well defined, and manifest in various forms, for example, through the wantok system. However, because of urbanisation, people are dislocated from the origin of these social systems, and therefore the process of urbanisation alone is enough to have some effect on these social systems. From my observations it would appear that people are using commercial music in order to connect with the places they are unable to connect with physically. For example, the marketing strategies of local record producers is centred around the concept of selling music from one area, to people who identify with that same area. People buy music from “their place”, therefore reinforcing their relationship to place, and thus reinforcing their cultural identity….
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Download PDF here:

Does PNG have Popular Culture? Perspectives on Commercial Music in Port Moresby. By Oli Wilson - PhD Candidate in Ethnomusicology at Otago University, New Zealand

Presented as part of the MAPS seminar series at the University of Papua New Guinea on Thursday 27th of March, 2008

Accepted for publication in the Wanpisin: Journal of the School of Humanities and Social Sciences, University of Papua New Guinea.

By Emmanuel Narokobi

I had a small meeting this morning at 8.15am with NCDC about their website. Certainly the earliest meeting I’ve had in a long time. Although the meeting discussed revamping their website I walked out of the office thinking about a number of other things that I wish NCDC would take on.

So what if…

• NCDC owned the public transport system in Port Moresby, that’s right all those PMV’s?
• What if all the buses ran on biogas like the Brisbane City buses in Australia?
• What if all this biogas was produced from the Waigani swamp where all our sewerage is dumped?
• What if the NCDC public transport system extended to ferries so that I can take my nephews and nieces out to the islands on the weekends?
• What if NCDC actually made some of its own money from running an efficient transport system?
• What if we had a monorail system that ran above the traffic from Gerehu to Waigani, Gordons, Boroko, Town and back. What if this supplemented the PMV system?
• What if all public transport systems in NCDC could be paid for by tickets which we could buy like mobile top up cards?
• What if we had wide footpaths along the side of all the roads so that the footpaths could take as much foot traffic as there was vehicle traffic?
• What if we had bridges across these brand new roads so that I wouldn’t have to show how fast a sprinter I am when trying to get across 4 lanes of road?
• What if the old Sea Park was turned into a public jetty so that I didn’t need to be a member of the Yacht Club to take my boat down there?
• What if that Sea Park public jetty became the home of PNG outrigger canoing activities?