Cash Bazaar Holdings Ready To Pay Music Royalties

Staff Writer | Monday May 16, 2016 15:32

COSBOTS CEO Thato Mokobi says Cash Bazaar Holdings have been cooperative since the society successfully sued Cash Bazaar for refusal to pay for music they play in their stores.

 “The beauty of it is that the court granted us everything we had applied for including costs. Cash Bazaar have submitted documents as per the court order and provided us with all information requested. We are in the process of finalising licencing for them so that they can start processing the payment”, Mokobi explains.

The COSBOTS boss, whose society made P9 million from collections in the last year says he has been receiving cooperation from similar entities such as PEP, Jet, the Choppies group, as well as restaurants.

Major clients include the telecommunications giants, and radio stations, which were among the first to be licenced. In another good move, Mokobi says his organisation has also been working with the Bot50 as to how they will be paying for their music events they are running around the country.

Mokobi says Bot50 has already submitted schedules of events to Cosbots.

Of recent COSBOTS have been parrying criticisms from some local promoters who feel the organisation is not supportive of local events.

However Mokobi is of the view that the outrage from some promoters stems out of ignorance of how COSBOTS works.

Mokobi encourages all promoters to register their events with COSBOTS in order to appreciate the good that comes with such a move. 

According to him, COSBOTS charges 30 per cent of the estimated two third of the carrying capacity of a venue, but after the event, the promoter is expected to come back to report whether he was over-charged or under-charged, for purposes of refund. However where a promoter of the event had not registered, and COSBOTS learnt about the music event later, the organisation may use its discretion to bill the promoter.

Since inception, COSBOTS have shut down four to five music events after the promoters refused to cooperate.

Mokobi says they are on the path to increasing their visibility around the country by recruiting six licencing and monitoring agents who will be keeping an eye on music events in their areas of operation, to enable COSBOTS to expand its collection of royalties for musicians.

In another development COSBOTS is in the process of recruiting a reprography officer, to begin licensing and monitoring of the use of literary works, sculptures, poetry, visual arts and visuals such as films.