The Chief Executive Officer of the Ministry of Commerce, Industry, and Labour Pulotu Lyndon Chu Ling reminded local musicians that copying music and directly translating English lyrics is a breach of copyright law if they do not have permission from original composers.

He said there are policies under the World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO) that deal with copyrights if they are caught.

Pulotu also explained that there is no official form for local musicians to fill out and register the ownership of their songs in Samoa, however, but the Ministry acts on voluntary registration.

He added that it is not limited to music but also other properties such as poems and news articles.

"The Ministry looks after various types of registrations of intellectual property and copyright is another thing like music copyrights, writings, poems and other things even news articles is all under copyright," he said.

"Mind you, copyright registration is voluntary which means there's no process form for you to register saying you own this song but you're already known as the owner like Punialavaa and Tiamaa.

"But the other issue here which the question refers to is our people using overseas music and turning them into their own music which once overseas countries notice then it will become a huge problem.

"Because our policies are limited to Samoa and overseas countries' policies are limited in their own countries but we are all under the WIPO, the world organisation.

"Usually the normal process is easy and these are allowed to use for educational purposes such as songs and poems and it's free and they are automatically protected under the copyright policy and that's what I mean by voluntary because it's automatic.

"For example, if someone complains from the media about plagiarism, the Ministry of Commerce conducts the investigation and they can trace the original paper that has the article or even on radio or television .

"But in terms of overseas, I think they are not paying much attention to it because of how small our island nation is and other countries in the Pacific but the truth is, we're not encouraging them to do those things." 

He urged that the singers should compose own songs and hope that someone doesn't report copyright matters overseas "because it will be a big issue if it's reported overseas".

The issue of Samoan singers using overseas songs and translating them into their own songs was raised to the C.E.O at the World Intellectual Property Day celebrations on Tuesday.

Samoa Observer understands that there are other songs including those that are trending being translated from the original English version into Samoan versions, and with the same music and lyrics.

In 2015, an American federal jury in Los Angeles agreed that the song “Blurred Lines” had gone too far, and copied elements of Marvin Gaye’s 1977 song “Got to Give It Up” without permission. The jury found that Robin Thicke, with Pharrell Williams, who shared songwriting credit on the track, had committed copyright infringement, and it awarded more than US$7.3 million to Mr. Gaye’s family.