Musicians finally get the better of MCSK

The bitter relationship between local musicians and the Music Copyright Society of Kenya (MCSK) — which many saw as parasitic — took another turn for the better after MCSK finally bowed to pressure from the artistes.

On Friday, there was a planned meeting called by MCSK in a paid advertisement published on Tuesday last week to take place in different regional venues across the country.

The agenda of the meeting was the proposed amendments and justification to the Memorandum and Articles of Association of MCSK.

According to the amendment document seen by Buzz, among the proposed changes included a maximum two three-year-term limit for directors who can never be re-elected once they are done.

“This ensures that new management ideas are infused to the board,” reads the document. It says elsewhere that the annual budget must be approved by members during the annual general meeting.

This ensures that members are aware of how their money would be spent and call management to account for extra spending.

According to financial records, MCSK has been spending the lion’s share of the society’s earnings — more than 50 per cent on administration — leaving artistes to feed on the scraps.

The Kenya Copyright Board had directed MCSK to reduce on the administration costs to at least 20 per cent. They were also ordered to be publishing financial reports at least twice a year for accountability purposes.

According to the amendments, elections are also supposed to be by secret ballot, among other changes.

“It is up to musicians to make this work from now on, or make it fail forever,” says musician Roba, formerly of Kleptomaniax, who was among the first whistle-blowers on misappropriation of funds at MCSK earlier in the year.

Many musicians have applauded the progress in the changes made within the systems so far.

Emmanuel Banda of Ogopa DJs say that for such a multi-million organisation to work properly and every member to benefit accordingly, changes had to be made.

“But like I have always insisted, we need positive change for the industry, not just change,” he adds.

By the time of going to press, it was still unclear what was agreed upon in the meetings that went on countrywide.

In another positive development, the long struggle between musicians and the Collective Management Organisations (CMO) might be on the home stretch if certain agreements are made.

In another advertisement published on Tuesday last week by two of the CMOs; Performance Rights Society of Kenya (PRSK) and Kenya Association of Music Producers (KAMP), companies with basic infrastructure to collect royalties are being called upon to apply as agents.

So what does this mean?

According to Kenya Copyright Board, this means the board still has the mandate to collect royalties.

Says one of it’s directors Edward Sigei: “Both PRSK and KAMP had licenses to collect royalties and can do so without any problem.

Only MCSK’s license had been revoked, but the matter is in court right now.” Ms Angela Ndambuki, the chief executive of PRSK, concurs.

“We are looking for as many agents as possible to make it easier and more cost effective to collect royalties on behalf of artistes. We are also putting systems in place to make sure that transparency is our first priority,” she says.

“PRSK and KAMP are working together to ensure royalties are collected and paid to musicians.

“We are working together, getting one check for both KAMP and PRSK, making it much easier to distribute royalties to musicians,” Ms Ndambuki adds.

But what happened to the much-publicised merger between MCSK, KAMP and PRSK? “The agreement was meant to start working from July 1,” Ms Ndambuki explains.

“By that time, MCSK still had a court case, that makes the agreement null. That’s why PRSK and KAMP are now working together under a new agreement to have the most cost effective way of collecting royalties.”

This is of course not the end of the road of the battle between Kenyan artistes and MCSK but it is a major plus.

On March 5, Buzz published a One on One interview with Roba, who complained about alleged misappropriation of funds by MCSK.

This story caused heated debate with MCSK officials coming out to defend themselves, even as more artistes joined in.

On April 1, Kenya Copyright Board de-registered MCSK’s and revoked their license to collect royalties on behalf of music composers and authors.

This was published in a gazette notice of May 6. The same day, MCSK had signed an agreement to merge with PRSK and KAMP.

At the moment, MCSK is not in the merger since it did not kick off at the beginning of this month.

We do not know how the controversy will end but what we do know is that musicians have a reason to smile, at least in the short term.

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