Copyright Board gets ball rolling
“If you want to know what a man’s like, take a good look at how he treats his inferiors, not his equals.”
J.K. Rowling MBABANE – Since the launch of the official Eswatini Copyright and Neighbouring Rights Society Board, local artists have been anxious on when the society would start retrieving royalties on their behalf.
The Copyright and Neighbouring Rights Act, 2018 came into force through Senator Manqoba Khumalo, the Minister of Commerce, Industry and Trade. This is according to a government gazette dated July 27, 2021, which announced that the Copyright and Neighbouring Rights Act of 2018 came into force on August 1, 2021.
According to copyright.gov, copyright is a type of intellectual property that gives its owner the exclusive right to make copies of a creative’s work, usually for a limited time. The creative work may be in a literary, artistic, educational, or musical form.
Although the Act has been in existence for a while now, it was not fully functional, as the society had to hire a secretariat and take the individuals hired under training. Actually in an interview with the chairperson Samkeliso Nxumalo said; “The Board is fully formed. The Board’s induction and foundational ‘Action Plan’ has been completed. The main structure that the Board needed to put in place was our procurement structure.
This is the structure we will use to hire the secretariat. “Our procurement procedure was approved and adopted on October 4. This means that we now have our procurement structure in place. Now that this critical internal structure is in place, the next step will be to hire the secretariat using the procurement procedure that has been recently adopted. The secretariat is the team of professionals that will manage and run the operations of the copyright society.
Secretariat
“The secretariat will be responsible for registering works, setting rates, licensing works, tracking usage of works, calculating royalties dues, collecting royalties, and distributing royalties. The secretariat will consist of the following key personnel: The director, the licensing officer, the documentation officer and the royalty management officer.
“The recruitment of the secretariat will be conducted by a professional recruitment agency to be selected by the Board.
Therefore, the plans going forward are as follows: a) Complete the
OPEN POSITIONS AT COPYRIGHT SOCIETY :
The Copyright Society invites applications from suitably qualified professionals to occupy the listed vacant positions.
Executive Director
Licensing Officer
Royalty Administrator
Documentation Officer
Seeking a visionary, innovative, and commercially astute leader to be responsible for the overall leadership and management of the society’s strategic, financial, and operational functions for the achievement of the organization’s goals and operational success.
Seeking a self-driven professional to administer and implement the licensing of copyright assets to users, for the purpose of creating value, and deriving optimum economic benefit, for the Society and its members.
Seeking a suitably qualified professional to track, monitor, and analyse the usage of copyright assets administered by the society for the purpose of ensuring compliance with existing license agreements, detecting illegal and improper use, and determining royalties due.
Seeking a suitably qualified professional to co-ordinate, and administer, all of the activities related to the registration of members and creative works, for the purpose of developing, and maintaining, a high value catalogue of copyright assets to strengthen the commercial productivity, and market dominance, of the Eswatini Copyright Society.
Seeking to appoint a suitably qualified and trustworthy professional, to administer the financial operations and accounting processes of the society, for the purpose of maintaining proper books of account to reflect the true financial position of the Society in conformity with acceptable financial standards and legislation.
recruitment of the secretariat; b) Training and empowerment of the secretariat, and; c) Hosting stakeholder seminars to discuss and develop the systems that need to be put in place to create an ecosystem that can effectively register works, set royalty rates, license works, track usage, collect royalties, and distribute royalties,” mentioned Nxumalo.
On Monday the Board came out to announce that they were hiring, meaning that the Board was in its final stages of completion.
In a statement they stated that, The Eswatini Copyright and Neighbouring Rights Society is an umbrella Collective Management Organisation (CMO) that exists to protect, promote, and serve the economic interests of copyright holders in the different creative industries protected under the Copyright Act of 2018. The society is a non-profit making organisation established by the Copyright Act of 2018, and is empowered with the authority to license creative works to users, collect and distribute royalties to rights holders, and enforce compliance. The work that we do is grounded in the recognition that it takes a lot of talent, energy, and resources to produce a creative work. It is therefore important that creators benefit economically from their efforts. Our mission, therefore, is to create value for rights holders and ensure that their creative output is adequately protected, and compensated, both locally and internationally. As a newly-established entity, our organisation is looking to hire a team of qualified professionals, with a strong pioneering spirit, to manage and run the organisation’s affairs and achieve operational success. According to Section (3) of the Copyright and Neighbouring Rights Act, 2018, works that are eligible for copyright if they are original include literary, musical, artistic, audio-visual works, sound recordings, broadcasts, programme carrying signals and published editions. Section (6) further states that work that is eligible shall qualify for copyright protection if it is made by or under the direction of the State or an international organisation designated as such by regulations made by Minister Khumalo.
It gives the owner the exclusive right to do or authorise reproducing, publishing, performing of the work in public or causing the work to be transmitted in a cable programme service, unless the service transmits a lawful broadcast. Copyright Rights Society Board includes the Chairperson, Samkeliso Nxumalo supported by Mluleki Sakhile Dlamini, Nobuhle Matsebula, Tiyamike Maziya, Mxolisi Vilakati, Mxolisi Radebe, Madoda Mdziniso, Phinda Nkosi and Annelisa Stoffels.
Copyright
Before the introduction of the Board, a number of local artists were already jumping boarders to register under SAMRO. SAMRO is the Southern African Music Rights Organisation. It is a copyright asset management society and was established by the South African Copyright Act, and aims to protect the intellectual property of music creators by licensing music users, collecting license fees and distributing royalties to music creators.
SAMRO collects money from establishments that use music like clubs, banks, radios and many others then distribute this money to music creators in a form of royalties. Local artists who have registered under the organisation include the likes of Fakazi Samuel, Judah, Khole, Floewe just to name a few.
A few artists like Judah, Fakazi Samuel and artist Manager Thembinkhosi Mthethwa had a few things to say on the matter and it is worth noting that they all shared the same sentiments on the issue at hand.
Juhah said; “It is great to know that artists will now get money for their talent and work that they actually do just like in other professions. Artists should now do their research and equip themselves with the required information about royalties and how they work.” The artist further highlighted how there was something called needle time that artists needed to know. Needle time is the limited time allocated by a radio channel to the broadcasting of music from records. Overall, the artist was excited about where the Board was headed and also wanted artists to be more informed.
Fakazi Samuel also shared the same sentiments as he said it was a long time come for the local industry. “I have a dream of a time where the artists in the kingdom are not going to South Africa to register with music bodies there, when Eswatini could have their own,” passionately expressed the artist. He further mentioned how he wishes that the ball would start rolling immediately and the collection of royalties would start as soon as this year. This publication further asked the Copyright Board if the individuals to be hired would need to have a musical background. “Music is one of the sectors to be served by the Society, but the Society’s work is not limited to music only. Hence, there is no specific music experience required for the roles. However, an understanding of the creative sector and copyright matters will be an added advantage,” mentioned Copyright Board Chairperson, Nxumalo.
Applications, and supporting documents, must be submitted via our online platform eswatinicopyrightsociety.com.
Applications will close at midnight on Sunday,
March 12,
2023.