In a landmark move to safeguard one of the Dominican Republic’s most cherished cultural heritage assets, the National Copyright Office (ONDA) has joined forces with the municipal government of Santiago to stage a first-of-its-kind public forum centered on intellectual property rights for the nation’s traditional music sector, officials confirmed in an announcement made Monday.
Titled “Derecho de Autor en la Cultura y la Música” (Copyright in Culture and Music), the event is slated to kick off Thursday, May 28 at the Santiago Municipal Palace. It forms a core component of a broader national public education initiative, developed to demystify convoluted copyright regulations for independent creators across the country’s local music ecosystem.
A central focus of the gathering will be the long-overdue preservation and formal legal protection of merengue típico, the oldest original subgenre of Dominican merengue that carries deep historical roots in Dominican cultural identity. Organizers emphasized that the forum was designed explicitly to close the persistent knowledge gap between complex national intellectual property legal structures and working independent traditional musicians, most of whom build their careers without the support of major record labels or formal industry backing, leaving them vulnerable to copyright infringement.
One of the most meaningful components of the forum’s agenda is a dedicated recognition segment honoring trailblazing female artists who have shaped and sustained merengue típico for decades, a contribution that has often been sidelined in mainstream cultural and industry discourse. The honorees include Fefita La Grande, a foundational figure in the genre who made history in the 1970s as the first woman to bring the accordion-driven traditional style to audiences across Europe. In 2019, she was awarded the Gran Soberano, the Dominican Republic’s highest honor for cultural achievement. She will be joined by three other acclaimed merengue típico artists: India Canela, María Díaz, and Paquel Arias.
Legal observers involved in organizing the event note that centering the careers of these pioneering creators is a critical step toward addressing a long-standing inequity: folk and traditional culture creators have historically been excluded from formal conversations around intellectual property rights and royalty compensation, meaning many have not received rightful payment for widespread use of their work.
The forum’s professional programming will be led by Lucía Castillo, a corporate copyright attorney and head of ONDA’s collective management department, who will deliver the keynote address. Her technical session will break down actionable, practical information for independent artists, covering step-by-step processes for official musical work registration, how domestic collective rights management organizations function, and the growing suite of digital tools available to help creators track and protect their royalty earnings.
Attendees will also receive detailed presentations from national collective management societies on Repertorio Dominicano (Reperdom), a purpose-built digital tracking platform developed to monitor public and broadcast playbacks of Dominican musical works and streamline the distribution of royalties directly to creators – a long-awaited upgrade that addresses longstanding inefficiencies in the local compensation system.
Beyond the forum, ONDA has announced two new complementary initiatives to expand copyright education and support for traditional creators: an upcoming national essay competition exploring intersections between copyright law and the Dominican sports industry, and the launch of the first ever institutional songwriting contest open exclusively to unpublished, original merengue típico compositions. The contest aims to incentivize new creation within the traditional genre while raising awareness of intellectual property rights among emerging artists.
Opening remarks for the forum will be delivered by ONDA Director General José Ruben Gonell Cosme and Santiago Mayor Ulises Rodríguez, marking the high level of institutional commitment to advancing protections for traditional Dominican cultural creators.