Artists in the dark about Cosbots payments

Gasebalwe Seretse | Tuesday January 21, 2014 17:33

 

Cosbots is set to pay the first batch of royalties to musicians at the end of February. However, many artists do not seem to have a clue how the pay would be calculated.

Showbiz has learnt after a series of interviews with some artists that most musicians would just accept what they get.Traditional musicians Captain Dira and Gong Master are some of the high profile musicians who have confessed their ignorance.

“I really do not know how it works. All I know is that Cosbots will collect the royalties for me, but how much will they pay me.  I do not know and how they will reach that number.  We have long waited for a meeting they proposed to explain this,” Dira told Showbiz.

Gong Master has also conceded. “I have registered with Cosbots, but I have to confess to not knowing how it operates or how it determines how much I should get,” he said.

The organisation’s communications head Itumeleng Mangole has said they were aware of the challenge and that they would soon go on a massive campaign.  They will educate the owners of the works and the general public how the system works.

“First we shall call a press conference before the first distribution where we would also explain on how the system operates.  But we also explain to our members when they register.  Clearly the message has not reached home and there is need for more education and workshops,” Mangole told Showbiz.

She said the type of licence a broadcaster is given determines how much artists get and how much a particular artist’s musician was used over a given period.

The licensing of radio and television stations was done last year May.  Mangole explained that broadcasters pay upfront for their licences.  Another factor used to determine how much a broadcaster should pay is the amount of revenue generated.

“We have the minimum and maximum that a broadcaster will be required to pay.  So there are negotiations between the user and Cosbots where the user is expecting something between that minimum and maximum,” she said.

Broadcasters submit a log sheet to Cosbots that would indicate all the music played in a particular year.  To ensure that the users stick to the agreed contract, Cosbots have put in place a monitoring system to ascertain that, Mangole said.

Mangole has also confirmed that a number of DJs have been licensed since May last year as well as other retailers.  DJs who play to a crowd of more than 50 people pay a flat P3,500 per year.

However, unlike radio stations, which are easy to monitor, Mangole noted that has no capacity to ensure that DJs stick to the terms of their contracts.  Since such performers were aware of the legal repercussions of trying to be ‘tricky’ Cosbots believed they would be honest in their dealings.

“They know very well that playing music that is not in the list they have given us would be illegal and that is the same as stealing,” she said.