KENYA: After Artists Now Pub Owners Rebel Against MCSK

The royalties’ tension between Kenyan artists and the Music Copyright Society of Kenya (MCSK) may have died down but Pub owners are seeking to start their own battle with the body.

Over the past few years MCSK has been looking into how to make more money for its members and one of the means that came up was charging levies to Pubs and matatus that play local music.

This caused an uproar among pub and matatu owners but eventually they were forced to cave in.

Now the Pubs, Entertainment and Restaurant Association of Kenya (PERAK) has asked its members not to pay any levies to MCSK over what they termed as 'wanton disregard for their business' and the exorbitant demand of 'un-gazetted and illegal tariffs'.

"We are here out of frustration," Patrick Muya, the chairman of PERAK, told the media at a press conference held at Coco Jambo in Nairobi on Monday. "We do hereby urge all our members not to pay MCSK levies until we get approved and gazetted tariffs by the Attorney General."

Muya added, "We wrote to the Inspector General and copied the police commanders to follow up with the various OCSs [officers commanding police stations] to stop offering officers who are used to threaten and intimidate PERAK members when they are asking for payments."

"Default or non-payment of tariffs does not in itself constitute a criminal offence. We pay numerous statutory charges and deductions. The administrators of these payments do not see the need to involve the police when these fall due."

The association is referring to section 46A of the Copyright Act that states "No collecting agency shall impose or collect royalties based on a tariff that has not been approved and published in the gazette by the cabinet secretary in charge of copyright issues in the gazette from time to time."

They are opposed to the 'arbitrary calculations' of levies and want a standard fee that is agreed on and gazetted.

Commenting on the issue, MCSK chairman Bernard Mukaisi told Word Is that the Copyright Act they are quoting took effect this year and that there will be a stakeholders meeting on February 11. "Anyone with issues can bring them out at the meeting... PERAK are not doing this in good faith. They should have raised these issues at the meeting so that they can be addressed."

[SOURCE: The Star, Word Is]