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The fate of more than 15,000 Music Copyright Society of Kenya (MCSK) members hangs on the balance after the giant society got its licence revoked by the Kenya Copyright Board (Kecobo) last week.
MCSK is the oldest and biggest artistes’ body that is mandated to collect royalties on behalf of members.
However, through on official release Kecobo announced that it had declined to renew the permit after MCSK failed to submit their audited financial statements and amounts paid in royalties to their members.
The copyright body said MCSK had exceeded the three months’ grace period it had been given to remit their audited statements and details of money paid to individual artistes for the period ending June 2016.
“As I said before, a decision once made can be reviewed. The decision was made to withhold the licence after we discovered that they had not remitted all the required documents. Should we receive them in good time then we will review it,” said the Kecobo Executive Director Edward Sigei during a forum to discuss a draft on collective rights management regulations on Tuesday.
For some time now, members have blamed the society on matters to do with transparency in collection and distribution of royalties.
Some members have even left it with others taking legal action against the body alleging that officials were mismanaging cash. Among those who have openly criticised it are gospel singer Ringtone, the Elani trio (pictured below) and rappers Abbas and Smallz Lethal.
At the moment, members remain a ‘broke’ lot as MCSK is not allowed to transact any business. However, this is a reprieve for content users who will enjoy the services free until this issue is sorted.
“We expect the gap to persist for a month then we should be able to make a decision on review or new licensing,” Sigei said during the Tuesday Nairobi stakeholders’ meeting.
