The Music Copyright Society of Kenya (MCSK) is on the spot after The Kenya Copyright Board (KECOBO) Board of Directors declined to renew its license for the year 2017.
The decision by the Board of Directors was made after MCSK failed to submit a list of its members and amounts received in royalties. It also failed to produce its latest audited financial statements for the year ending June 2016.
These are mandatory documents Under Regulation 16 of the Copyright Regulations to determine suitability to function as a collecting society.
“In the absence of audited financial statement and a list of members who were paid royalties in the last one year, the Board found that the society did not qualify for renewal since an assessment of the society’s performance for the past year was not possible. As such the application for renewal was rejected,” explained KECOBO’s executive director Edward Sigei.
“MCSK failed to produce their audited accounts even after being invited two times since October last year to do so by the Legal and Technical Affairs Committee of the Board,” added Sigei.
The denial of licence means that MCSK must cease its operations of collecting of royalties until their license application is reviewed after submission of the required documents or a suitable collecting society is appointed in its place.
The Board recommended the renewal of licences for KAMP and PRISK after they fulfilled all the set requirements.
“The licence for KAMP comes with a condition to raise the ratio of royalties paid to its members to above 50 per cent from the current 20 per cent,” he said.
