Locals get little in royalties while aliens receive lion's share
Spira Tlhankane | Friday April 3, 2020 21:02
According to COSBOTS, the period they are currently distributing for, foreign repertoire enjoyed 73% airplay or usage compared to 27% in respect of the local repertoire, which means that almost three quarters of the royalties collected and distributed after taking into account administrative costs will go to foreign artists.
But a spokesperson for COSBOTS’s concerned members, Lizibo told Arts & Culture that even if that was the case they do no’t agree with the amount of money they received as royalties.
“It does not correspond with the airplay because an artist like Vee Mampeezy only got as much as 4k and he is one of the artists who enjoy so much airplay. Even a legend such as Scar received as little as P200,” he said.
Lizibo who was amongst the artists who stormed COSBOTS offices demanding payment last week said the way COSBOTS do their math is impractical and their current system allows for such flaws. He said COSBOTS instead of using a systematic method to determine their royalties’ payments the latter still uses a manual alterable Microsoft Excel statement. He however admitted that they are aware that local radio stations do not play their music as they are supposed to. Lizibo said going forward they would change the administrative staff because the bills at COSBOTS are just too high.
“We put them there and we are partly to blame because we thought they would change the system. They cannot think outside the box,” he said. Lizibo also said they will seek to reduce the CEO’s powers and give them to the creatives.
For his part, COSBOTS CEO Lesego Selotate who was held against his will by artists in a recent spat said if one looks at the current distribution and payment of royalties and apply the principle of equal treatment based on actual usage of works, the foreign works qualify for a “lions share” of the royalties. Selotate said users are not always ready to pay for usage of works and in some cases may have challenges that inhibit them from paying for the usage. “And until and unless the money is paid to COSBOTS, the Society cannot distribute what it doesn’t have and has not been able to collect. The process of matching works and calculating the proportions of royalties due to each contributor in the production of the copyright works is a manual tedious process that is both tedious and time consuming. The very nature of the works contribute significantly to the delay in carrying out a distribution operation which results in COSBOTS paying artists for the use of their works,” he explained.
Selotate said because of the manual process of matching this ever growing volume of works using a very small team of personnel, this stretches the limit of human and technical capacity, forcing the organisation to either employ more resources to process the data or to invest in digital database that can automate the processing of the information for purposes of gathering, processing and matching to speed up the distribution operation.
He said the current distribution which is number 12 is for an amount of P3.0million and prior to distribution 12, COSBOTS had last distributed royalties in July 2019 and the respective amount for Distribution 11 was a Net Distributable Revenue (NDR) of P2.9million.
Arts & Culture also interviewed renowned local music promoter Gilbert “PPwa Pimp” Seagile who has been campaigning for the playing of 70% of local content in local radio stations. Currently the existing Botswana Communications Regulatory Authority quota is 6040, under which foreign content is receiving 60% of air space and local songs getting 40% airplay. Seagile revealed that local artists’ situation wouldn’t change if they don’t support his campaign of 70% local content.
“It’s painful that people are getting peanuts after spending so much to perfect their crafts. But what can we do because it’s the regulations that are failing us. A lot of money is going out of the country and this will continue if the regulator doesn’t change the 60/40% ratio. This is starving the local artists of airplay. We have enough content to sustain that 70%,” he said. Seagile concluded that COSBOTS is giving artists what they have collected.