The Music Copyright Society of Kenya (MCSK) says it is working on an app that will help musicians earn more royalties.
The CMO, which collects royalties on behalf of authors, composers, arrangers, and publishers of music, said the development of an MCSK app is in the final stages of testing.
Speaking during MCSK’s 31st Annual General Meeting on Tuesday, Mr Lazarus Muoki Muli, the Chairman of the Governing Council, said the app will help address the current challenges facing its members.
He, however, faulted the members for failure to follow regulations, hence preventing them from receiving any royalties.
“They have refused to update, correct and provide MCSK Documentation and Distribution Department with the correct details of the mobile phone number, Kenya Revenue Authority PIN (I-Tax), national ID and email addresses. In line with Provision of MCSK Distribution Rules, all unidentified/unutilized royalties within three years shall be ploughed back into the administration and management of the Company, therefore time is of the essence to ensure that this anomaly in members’ records is sorted out,” Muli said.
Muli advised members who have not been receiving their royalties and any communication from MCSK to visit the nearest MCSK office across the country for assistance.
The MCSK app is expected to improve members’ records and streamline royalty collection.
“The app is going to improve the quality of database and records MCSK holds of rights holders, reduce the time it takes to approve and issue membership numbers to new applicants and make it easy to verify originality of works submitted to reduce cases of infringement and duplicity. The app will allocate all the works MCSK uploads onto the database a fingerprint that would be a unique identifier for every song in MCSK controlled catalogue,” Muli said.
He added that with time, the app will be used to monitor the use of music in public spaces, broadcast and digital platforms so as to generate log sheets for the purposes of distributing royalties collected.
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