So this semester I’m currently
doing a course on Copyright Law, Reproduction Rights Organisation and
Publishing and it has popped up in my mind a couple of times that in Zimbabwe,
do music producers or artists themselves know about this? If you have read the
Zimbabwean Copyright and Neighbouring Rights Act then you know what I am
talking about.
It is either I don’t
know if these rights are being implemented or I was young when they were
effective enough for music producers to gain something from their works.
However if Copyright Law is effective in Zimbabwe then it is something which is
receding into oblivion, yet it has the potential to make music producers rich
and notable in the society.
So without wasting a
lot of time, especially for those who are lazy to read, I feel pity for some of
the Zim Dancehall producers who I meet in the streets and in some studios that
I have been to. Someone will create a riddim and have at least 15 artists on
it, each paying maybe $20 (some will not even pay) and out of those 15 artists
maybe 5 of them are established and they will be performing almost every week.
So one produces a song,
it becomes a hit and the artist will be cashing in because of that song which
he would have payed $20 for. He or she will be making more money from the song
whilst the producer will be enjoying moral rights, like seriously, do these
producers even think of how much they should be making out of their works if
they are not ignorant or if they know of copyright and related rights?
What Producers Should Do
So instead of someone
coming to your studio, record, pay $20 and go, why don’t you try to make them
sign a contract? I have heard and read others saying they have signed new
artists but in your contracts is there any clause where you as the producer
will be gaining commercially (excluding the recording money) from the song you
produced?
What I think is that when
you happen to sign someone to your stable, include a clause where you as the
producer of the song will benefit from the song whenever it is played or
whenever it is performed. For example, if your artist performs a song which you
produced at a certain show, you as the producer should gain a certain
percentage from the money the artist gets.
You might agree that
you will get 5% of his money after he performs the song, so at the end of the
month just think of how much you will make if you do business like this with
all your artists. Let’s say you get $5 every time he or she performs the song,
if he performs 4timesin a month then you have $20, now if you have 5 artists
you will be having $100 a month. If the artist decides to trick you, just sue
him for more than he expects!
Producers should be
making money just as how their artists are making money. We are tired of meeting
people who you know produced a hit song which went for a year as the national
anthem in combis just because they can’t afford to buy an ex-Japanese car
whilst Souljah Love is parking a couple of cars at his home, NO!
About Related Rights
While copyright
protects the rights of authors, another set of similar rights, known as
“related rights” or “neighbouring rights”, protects the rights of other owners
of rights, namely, performers, producers of phonograms and broadcasting
organizations. The Copyright Act defines neighbouring or related
rights as the property rights subsisting in performances, sound recordings and
broadcasts. Related rights have been described as belonging to the
intermediaries in the production, recording or diffusion of the works of
copyright owners. These intermediaries (performers, producers of
phonograms and broadcasting organizations) facilitate the intellectual creation
process by assisting authors to communicate their works to the public.
Thank you for reading
this, you may please share with your fellows. By the way this is not only for
Zim Dancehall artists for your own information. Another thing is that I’m sorry
for the title of this article, I just wanted you to read through modzidza zvakawanda.
He's got bars and great wordplay and apparently he is a new kid on the block. Upon meeting him on campus last semester (Nov 2015), Grey asked me what he was supposed to do to gain attention in the Zim Hip Hop fraternity and I told him to drop visuals for one of his best tracks. 
