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Culture is an important element in any society as it forms an identity for people. And while culture is shown in different ways, art and literature remain two of the most common ways in which it is best reflected.
Even government recognises this fact. In fact, the Minister of Sports, Youth and Culture, Henry Chimunthu Banda, said recently government set up the Copyright Society of Malawi (Cosoma) to ensure that works of authors, composers and performers are protected and that the artists are adequately remunerated for any use of their works.
However, artists the world over find it hard to get the rewards for their work. In Malawi, the music sector, which makes a greater part of the artistic industry, has probably been the worst hit, especially due to piracy.
Artists have cried foul because of piracy as customers are not able to differentiate between pirated and original work. Thus, it becomes painful to the musicians when their work is being taken for granted. Their rights need to be protected as stipulated in the Universal Declaration on Human Rights which gives individuals the right to the protection of the moral and material interest resulting from any literary or artistic production which they author.
But according to Senior Licencing Officer for Cosoma, Rosario Kamanga, while piracy is rife on the Malawi market, the major problem is with CDs and not audio tapes.
“Piracy for local audio tapes has drastically reduced. We are having problems with CD’s because they are relatively new on the market,” said Kamanga.
He said while Cosoma is trying its best to combat piracy by confiscating pirated materials, among other things, they still have problems with issues of royalties both with musicians and users.
“Some musicians do not understand how the system works. The royalties are paid on the actual sales of cassettes and not the number of covers that they submit to their distributors,” said Kamanga, adding that they are trying to conduct civic education with musicians for a better understanding of the process.
However, musician Charles Sinetre of Alleluyah Banda said government should take an active role in combating piracy.
“Government needs to realise that by controlling piracy, they are not only protecting our rights but also those of consumers,” said Sinetre.
He hoped that the presence of fellow musicians in Parliament would help change things for the better for musicians in the country.
On royalties, Sinetre said the major problem lies with distributors whom he said always want to benefit a lot more than the musicians themselves.
“Most distributors produce a lot of covers for fewer cassettes ordered, such that when you want to give them more cassettes they tell you they still have your covers,” he explained.
Sinetre said distributors need to learn to promote music to increase the sales on the market because “sales of cassettes depends on promotion and the quality of music and not covers”.
But musician Lucius Banda of Zembani Band said most music users do not pay royalties so Cosoma cannot give money to musicians. He said this is the case because most music users do not appreciate the hard work involved in music production, hence they do not feel the need to pay royalties.
Banda further said musicians are left helpless by the nonpayment of royalties by users, especially radio stations because somehow they still need the radios to play their music.
“I just pray that the music users should appreciate that musicians need to be paid for their hard work,” he said.
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