Copyright Society seeks CEO - at last

MONKAGEDI GAOTLHOBOGWE
Staff Writer | Tuesday October 19, 2010 00:00

Established five years ago, the organisation has been criticised by local musicians, through the Botswana Musicians Union (BOMU), for taking too long to start collecting royalties for musicians whose products are consumed by four local radio and two local television stations, while a lot of Botswana music is also played on South African radio stations.

The deadline for applications is October 25. However, at the time of going to press the chairman of COSBOTS would not give details.

But the advertisement for the CEO for the royalties collecting body says the prospective CEO should be someone with experience in the creative industry plus programme and project management.

He/she would, among other things, licence users of protected works (like music), as well as monitoring the use of the works (like music) to collect user fees and to distribute royalties to artists and manage the international network with other similar bodies.

Among others the CEO would also devise policies and strategies and long-term plans and prepare elements of those plans relating to creative works.

From the advert, it would seem the post would go to a citizen, as one of the requirements is fluency in Setswana and English.  Professional qualification for the job include a degree in the arts/information science/international politics, business law or other relevant discipline, as well as a minimum of five years experience at senior management level.