The Kenya Association of Music producers, a collective management organisation licensed by the Kenya Copyright Board to represent the owners of sound recordings and audio-visual works is pleased to announce its Royalty distribution for the first half of year 2021 , under the chairmanship of Mr. Anthony K. Murimi.
A total of Ksh 8.6 Million has been distributed to music producers on the revenue collected between January 2021 to June 2021.
“We have had a challenging year, as you are all aware since the onset and arrival of COVID 19 pandemic in March 2020, our operations and collections have been adversely affected. With the closure of business operations due to various factors resulting from the impact of COVID 19 most of the users of Sound Recordings and Audio-visual works that we license like hotels and bars that contribute a bigger percentage of our Royalty collection were not able to comply and pay the music license as their business were affected by lockdowns and were not operating because of the restrictions imposed by the government. Hotels that rely on tourists were not spared either as counties were on lock down to prevent the spread of the virus.”
Nonetheless, as KAMP we had to re-strategize and look for ways that would enable us to collect. Together with other collective management organisations namely: PRISK and MCSK, we put in place campaigns on educating users on the new self-licensing online portal that enables users of music to apply and pay for a license by themselves wherever they are and it also gives them options on payment plans. The system is flexible and can be accessed either through a USSD code or via the internet (web portal).
We have seen several businesses that are recovering from the pandemic complying with us. The uptake has been slow but we are positive that things are getting better as compared to how they were at the beginning of the year. Amidst all the challenges that were presented before us, we are slowly getting back to our rhythm as we are able to do a royalty distribution in the middle of the year,” says Mr. Murimi, Chairman KAMP.
“We want to thank our members for their patience and understanding. As KAMP we are committed to distribute promptly and have timely pay-outs to ensure members get their due Royalties. We also want to request our members to continue with their core business of producing quality music that attracts air play so that they can earn more. The more air play one receives the more royalties they get”.
We are also committed to the Joint royalty collections venture with PRISK and MCSK. In addition, we will strive to ensure all businesses that use copyrighted works pay for the Joint License.
The Board wishes to encourage other users of music i.e. broadcasters and transport sector to also comply and pay for their licenses on time so as to ensure our members continue benefiting from the use of their musical works.
Mr. Anthony K. Murimi
Chairman KAMP
