The Kenya Copyright Board (KECOBO) has de-registered three Collective Management Organisations (CMOs) for failure to meet its licensing conditions.
According to a notice issued on Tuesday, August 24, KECOBO Executive Director, Edward Sigei, announced the de-registration of the Kenya Association of Music Producers (KAMP), Performers Rights Society of Kenya (PRISK), and the Music Copyright Society of Kenya (MCSK).
The Board affirmed that its commitment is to protecting creatives' rights by ensuring they get the 70 percent royalties as stipulated in the Copyright Act.
KECOBO pointed out that the three CMOs failed to meet the above criteria by distributing only Ksh41 million instead of the intended Ksh79 million.
"The Board, at its meeting of August 11, 2021, further took note of the recent distribution of royalties where the CMOs distributed Ksh41 million (35.9 percent) instead of Ksh79 million (70 percent) from Ksh114 million collected at the end of July 2021 in defiance to the KECOBO license conditions," Sigei stated.
"It should be noted that the distribution excludes money received and expensed in the other accounts out of KECOBO monitoring system."
According to the notice, the board felt dissatisfied with the CMO explanation in response to show cause letters and hence stamped its authority by revoking their licenses.
"The Board, will in conjunction with relevant ministries, shortly commence the process of seeking views on reforming the CMO legal structure to prevent recurrence of the misuse of funds by CMOs," read the notice in part.
Musicians and creatives have been up in arms over the royalties remitted by the CMOs. This led to the organisations' locking horns with various artistes over their due payments.
On multiple occasions, several artistes took to their platforms to castigate the CMOs over the minimal payments.
The complaints led the government to adopt a new system dubbed The National Right Registry Module through which musicians register and track their royalties.
Under this portal, artists can now undertake online copyright registration including uploading their works, view and manage all their registered copyright works, make payment against the application where applicable and receive and print their copyright registration certificates virtually.
