Yesterday Elani spoke on the matter of music royalties being paid to the artistes and MCSK (Music Copyright Society of Kenya) was the center of attention on their public statement they had yesterday dubbed #ElaniSpeaks.
Also read: Elani Comes Forth To Attack Kenyan Music Body MCSK After They Got Paid Ksh.31, 000 For A Whole Year.
Now its Avril’s turn and she had an interesting thing to say in regard to MCSK and she neither took the sides of the MCSK nor the side of the artiste but she was somewhat tepid on the matter but she stressed the fact that all artistes need to get paid but they at least need to know about the metrics running behind how the artistes gets paid.
This is the interesting rather long post Avril shared about the MCSK and artistes generally;
“100% of broadcast royalties are paid to the artists by MCSK. However artists don’t know that for you to maximize on royalty collections…. Your works must be played by a paying station. Secondly as per MCSK tariffs, broadcasters are supposed to submit a percentage of their broadcast royalties from advertising to MCSK and this would have beefed up the royalties to the artists. However, this is not the case and all of them have resulted to paying the bare minimum of 24,000 per month for National TV and 72,000 for a National radio station. Assuming about 40 radio stations pay and about 30 TV stations pay as well, where the bulk of the media houses fall under regional, thus their tariff is much lower. In total collection from broadcasters could result to a max of about 30 Million. Divide this amongst 10,000 members and you have about 3,000 shillings per artist for a whole year if a non scientific distribution is run. 3,000 shillings can barely afford a recording. Remember, MCSK distribution runs from July to June of the following year. Which also determines how much airplay will be considered for a distribution. E. G. If an artist releases a song in May and the close of the year is in June. The amount of airplay that will be considered is only for two months for the broadcast royalties in that distribution year. The rest will be paid the following distribution year. That is why an artist will say that their song has been receiving airplay but they only received very little in that year. In countries such as South Africa in which MCSK seconds in collection in Africa, the bulk of their collection comes from broadcast royalties where the media houses pay as much as 10% percent of their advertising revenues. In Kenya, MCSK tried it and media houses were up in arms thus they resulted in opting to pay the bare minimum. It is sad at this age and time when I see some artists fighting MCSK.
#Part2 .. It is sad at this age and time when I see some artists fighting MCSK when the facts clearly show that they should be joining hands to fight middlemen in the Skiza Deal, broadcasters that are not paying, adoption of percentage pegged tariffs on broadcasters as per their audited accounts in paying royalties to MCSK, public sensitization on why paying royalties is good citizenship rather than being coerced by use of police for them to pay for Music usage. Finally, MCSK ni sisi Wasanii, Let’s not destroy what was built on March 3rd 1982 for our own selfish interests. Mcsk is not perfect but we do believe everything will work out well for all the artists.
I would love for a situation where the big 5: Nation Media Group, Standard Group, MediaMax, KBC and Royal Media go on record to furnish the public with details on whether they pay royalties or sort out licenses for all CMOs they are required to pay for. Anyone?
Ndio nisikie the know it alls saying I’m in bed with MCSK. I’m fighting cause I see where the problem is..and I want my money too but I won’t fight the person fighting for me…”
She went on to share a receipt from the MCSK body
