Ekoroi Blog was started to document a life of poetry, mystery, books and above all support creativity in Kenya and maybe beyond.
This is why, Ekoroi welcomes the decision by the copyright body – Kenya Copyright Board (KECOBO) to deregister those who carry whips like slave masters, looting the money gotten from the toil of hardworking Kenyan creatives.
Public Notice by KECOBO
This is to inform you that the Board of Directors of the Kenya Copyright Board (KECOBO) has taken a decision to revoke license for three Collective Management Organisations namely Kenya Association of Music Producers (KAMP), Performers Rights Society of Kenya (PRISK), and the Music Copyright Society of Kenya (MCSK) for failure to meet its licensing conditions.
The Board had earlier in the year issued the three music royalty collecting societies with provisional licenses as it allowed them time to meet the conditions set out by the KECOBO Board of Directors.
This follows show cause letters issued to the CMOs for non-compliance to the licensing conditions specifically breach of administrative cost limit and diversion of royalties into an undeclared account which operations are unmonitored by KECOBO.
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The Board, at its meeting of August 11, 2021 further took note of the recent distribution of royalties where the CMOs distributed Kshs.41 million (35.9%) instead of Kshs.79 million (70%) from Kshs.114m collected at the end of July 2021 in defiance to the KECOBO license conditions. It should be noted that the distribution excludes money received and expensed in the other accounts out of KECOBO monitoring system.
CMOs managers have a duty to prudently manage royalties they collect on behalf of creatives. A 3 year forensic audit (2017-2019) on CMOs exposes leakages. @KenyaCopyright forwards final forensic audit report to enforcement agencies to investigate suspected fraudulent transactions pic.twitter.com/etZTXyjBR9
— Kenya Copyright Board (@KenyaCopyright) September 22, 2020
The Board, after being dissatisfied with the CMO explanation in response to show cause letters, invoked the provisions of Section 46(9) to 46(12) of the Copyright Act to deregister KAMP, PRISK and MCSK. Following the revocation of licenses, collection of royalties has been suspended for a period of three (3) months or until further advised.
The Board will, in conjunction with relevant ministries, shortly commence the process of seeking views on reforming the CMO legal structure to prevent recurrence of the misuse of funds by CMOs.
Meanwhile, the Board wishes to request rights holders to be patient and await public consultation on this matter.
Edward Sigei
Executive Director
Kenya Copyright Board (KECOBO)
August 24, 2021
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