US record label wants to sue PNM for using Prince Swanny song

KEVON FELMINE

Se­nior Re­porter

[email protected]

A Unit­ed States-based record la­bel has threat­ened le­gal ac­tion against se­nior of­fi­cials of the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM), al­leg­ing the unau­tho­rised use of a copy­right­ed song in po­lit­i­cal cam­paign ma­te­r­i­al ahead of the To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly elec­tions.

In a pre-ac­tion pro­to­col let­ter dat­ed Fri­day, Jan­u­ary 9, at­tor­neys Keron Ramkhal­whan and Lloyd Robin­son, act­ing for VAS Pro­duc­tions LLC, ac­cused PNM gen­er­al sec­re­tary Fos­ter Cum­mings and po­lit­i­cal leader of the To­ba­go Coun­cil of the PNM, An­cil Den­nis, of copy­right in­fringe­ment in re­la­tion to the song Liff Up.

VAS Pro­duc­tions LLC, based in At­lanta, Geor­gia, de­scribed it­self in the let­ter as a record la­bel and pro­duc­tion com­pa­ny spe­cial­is­ing in ur­ban and Caribbean mu­sic. Ac­cord­ing to the cor­re­spon­dence, the com­pa­ny record­ed and pro­duced Liff Up, per­formed by T&T artiste Tyrell Swan, al­so known as Prince Swan­ny.

The at­tor­neys stat­ed that un­der an agree­ment dat­ed Au­gust 1, 2025, VAS Pro­duc­tions was des­ig­nat­ed as the au­thor and own­er of all rights, in­clud­ing copy­right and neigh­bour­ing rights, in works pro­duced by Prince Swan­ny in re­la­tion to his al­bum Out­side. The agree­ment, they said, specif­i­cal­ly cov­ered Liff Up, with the melody cre­at­ed by the pro­duc­tion com­pa­ny.

The let­ter al­leged that on Jan­u­ary 5 and 6, a ver­sion of Liff Up, per­formed by an uniden­ti­fied artiste, was used in po­lit­i­cal cam­paign ad­ver­tise­ments for Den­nis, the PNM can­di­date for Buc­coo/Mt Pleas­ant. Ac­cord­ing to the at­tor­neys, the song was pub­lished as reels on Face­book and In­sta­gram ac­counts as­so­ci­at­ed with the can­di­date and was al­so used at po­lit­i­cal meet­ings and ral­lies dur­ing the cam­paign pe­ri­od.

VAS Pro­duc­tions con­tend­ed that the melody used in the cam­paign song was iden­ti­cal to the orig­i­nal com­po­si­tion, de­spite dif­fer­ences in the lyrics. The at­tor­neys ar­gued that the re­pro­duc­tion and pub­lic dis­sem­i­na­tion of the melody amount­ed to copy­right in­fringe­ment un­der the Copy­right Act.

The let­ter fur­ther stat­ed that a rep­re­sen­ta­tive act­ing in the in­ter­ests of VAS Pro­duc­tions con­tact­ed the PNM’s To­ba­go cam­paign man­ag­er af­ter the al­leged unau­tho­rised use was dis­cov­ered and was told that the par­ty in­tend­ed to pay for the use of the work and would com­mu­ni­cate with the com­pa­ny. How­ev­er, the at­tor­neys said no agree­ment was fi­nalised and that a cease-and-de­sist let­ter sent by email on Jan­u­ary 7, 2026, re­ceived no re­sponse.

Con­tact­ed yes­ter­day for a re­sponse, Den­nis said he had not yet re­ceived the let­ter or heard about the claims. Cum­mings did not re­spond to re­peat­ed calls for a com­ment.

How­ev­er, in a re­sponse dat­ed yes­ter­day, at­tor­neys for Den­nis said he would not com­ply with a re­quest for a pub­lic an­nounce­ment de­nounc­ing the al­leged use of the song but agreed to stop its of­fi­cial use go­ing for­ward.

In the let­ter, at­tor­ney Kash­ka His­lop-St Hillaire, act­ing with Gilbert Pe­ter­son, SC, said Den­nis was “un­able to com­ply” with the re­quest for a pub­lic an­nounce­ment from the cam­paign stage, “with­out prej­u­dice and with­out any ad­mis­sion of li­a­bil­i­ty.”

She said Den­nis was pre­pared to is­sue in­struc­tions that the al­leged song not be of­fi­cial­ly used in the mo­tor­cade cam­paign sched­uled for Sun­day, Jan­u­ary 11.

“We trust that this po­si­tion may be sat­is­fac­to­ry to you and your client at this stage,” the let­ter stat­ed.

It is not the first time mu­sic by Prince Swan­ny has been used in a po­lit­i­cal cam­paign. His song Re­al Mad Dogs was re­pur­posed by the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress dur­ing the cam­paign ahead of the Au­gust 10, 2020, Gen­er­al Elec­tion.