The Sunday News
Bruce Ndlovu, Sunday Life Reporter
BANKS, retail outlets, nightclubs and even individual DJs are supposed to acquire copyright licences before they playlist the music of artistes, according to the country’s music rights authority.
Copyright transgressions have become a topical issue in showbiz over the last few weeks after some of the country’s most prominent artistes were caught with their pants down over some of their hits from the past.
First was Jah Signal, who found one of his most popular songs Sweetie pulled down from YouTube, six years and six million views into its stay on the video-sharing platform. This was after a complaint from The Fishers of Men, who felt that his explicit lyrics had obliterated the original meaning and intent of the song.
The next to feel the wrath of copyright laws was Winky D, who had to pull down all the hits from his Gafa Life Kicks Tape after Kenako came knocking on his door, asking for long overdue royalties.
While those cases received their fair share of publicity, it has emerged that a lot of artistes and businesses in the country might be flouting copyright laws without even realising it.
In an interview with Zimpapers Television Network (ZTN) last week, Zimbabwe Music Rights Association Executive Director, Polisile Ncube Chimhini said that people hosting events were meant to acquire licences for the music that they were going to play. “If you are playing for an audience in a public event, you have to get a copyright licence, which is what Zimura issues.
Then you will be covered for playing the song because what you are doing there is playing the song as it is. You are not rearranging the song, you are not adapting the song and you are not synchronising the song into another work. There is nothing wrong with playing the work but you have to get a copyright licence,” she said.
Chimhini added that establishments such as banks and retail outlets were also supposed to get licences for the music that they used to entertain their clients.
“The role of Zimura is to protect copyright, particularly music copyright for publishers, composers, music writers and producers. How this copyright is protected is that we licence all business premises that use music. We start with broadcasters, shops, nightclubs, banks, you name it. Any business that uses music we are supposed to give a copyright licence to and then after that, we are supposed to pay the royalties to the artiste,” she said.
Chimhini said the Jah Signal issue was escalated by the fact that Charles Charamba and his band had felt that their music was being corrupted, which made it odd, as usually copyright complaints came from people who felt that they were prejudiced of some economic benefits.
“There are some copyright infringement cases which have to be dealt with directly by the author. This is relevant to the Jah Signal, Charamba issue because most of it has to do with moral rights instead of economic rights. When we are talking of moral rights we are talking of rights of paternity. These are rights to be known or not to be known as the composer of a song. Rights to reject the use of the song in any manner. What happened there was that the Charambas did not like the lyrics that Jah Signal used on the melody that they created in their song and this was communicated way back in 2018 when he started.
“They thought he had listened but then in 2023 he also did another copyright infringement on another of their songs. So, they thought if it was going to continue it would harm their careers. So, they put a stop to it. More of it was to do with moral rights instead of economic rights, Charamba rightly said that he didn’t want any money from Jah Signal but it was to do with moral rights. These rights are provided for in the Copyright Act,” she said.
While young artistes are now fond of remixing or sampling the hits of bygone stars, Chimhini said deceased artistes were still entitled to enjoy benefits from their music for 50 years after their passing.
“Some songs are used in movies, dramas, soaps and things like that. So, if you are an artiste and someone is using your song in their drama, they have got to ask just in case they don’t want their song to be associated with whatever you’re doing. They’ve got the right to say no. “ . . . If you want to sample a Dembo song then you have to approach Mai Dembo, who holds Dembo’s copyright right now so that she gives you permission. She can ask you to pay or she can give it to you for free because copyright lasts for the lifetime of the artiste and for 50 years after the death of the artiste. So, if an artiste dies and 50 years has not passed their work is still under copyright. If the artiste dies and their work is under copyright, you have to ask whoever is holding the copyright at the time,” she said.
Chimhini said Zimura would be holding workshops across the country, as they sought to spread the gospel on copyrights. “We started these workshops last year. The plan is to make sure that at least every Zimbabwean knows something about copyright.
This is because we noticed that a lot of Zimbabweans do not know anything about copyright or intellectual property in particular. So, we have these workshops every month. We go around the cities, from Harare to as far as Victoria Falls. We are starting this year’s workshops in Mutare on 12 March. By the end of November, we should have reached all big towns in Zimbabwe,” she said.
