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Alexio Gwenzi and Hope Masike
Copyright Academy
Take a moment to imagine your favourite Zimbabwean musician. Have you ever wondered how much they are worth?
Or in simpler terms, what kind of house they live in; whether it is theirs or they are renting and so forth? When you dance to their music being played on radio or in a restaurant or a concert, do you ever wonder how they get money from their songs being played there?
The law was designed to ensure that your favourite musician can reap from their hard work every time it is used commercially.
According to the Copyright and Neighbouring Rights Act (Chapter 26:05), any establishment (music venue, restaurant, hotel etc) that plays music must get permission to do so after getting a licence from a collecting society such as ZIMURA.
Upon obtaining this licence, the business will now be allowed to play their choice of music for a year.
In the modern-day music business, to maximise revenue, a musician cannot depend on live performances and record sales only, but also survives through royalties.
In countries such as Nigeria and South Africa, music royalties are big business! In 2023, Spotify revealed that more than US$9 million was paid to Nigerian musicians as streaming royalties, and that is just Spotify!
In Zimbabwe, over the years, musicians have been accused of being reckless with the money, but we have also neglected to admit that these music artistes are being robbed in broad daylight, sometimes by all of us.
We have to agree that a musician”s first source of revenue is the product itself and the intellectual property rights attached to it.
If you are a venue owner and probably wondering how you are involved in all this, here is the golden rule of Copyright! Any venue, establishment, or service that benefits commercially from playing music, by law is supposed to pay for the usage.
For example, a restaurant that plays music to entertain its patrons; a shop that uses music to attract customers by playing certain catchy/trendy tunes; a bar that has live music perhaps every Friday night to lure imbibers, a hotel that has music in its lobby and festivals and music venues are all required to get a licence.
Likewise, radio and television stations are required at law to obtain a licencing agreement from originators of music to broadcast his works.
In Zimbabwe almost all media houses have obtained the authority to play music from artistes through ZIMURA and from time to time do pay royalties which are in turn distributed to the musicians.
Further music usage examples include film sound tracks/scoring, adverts andbackground music. Basically, the golden rule is that commercial (even when it’s not financial) music usage outside personal/private usage attracts a fee.
If you use music to create the right ambiance for your business, to keep patrons entertained or to bring costumers, then you haveto pay for such usage. This is a reasonable way to honour the musicians who created that music, and very importantly also, to support them financially.
It is equally important to note that this is not just done to support the musicians, it must also be done because it is what the law dictates.
The musicians don’t have to be there to make money from their music, if their music is there and is being used for commercial value, it must generate passive income for them.
The user of this music must pay a fee to ZIMURA, whose principal mandate is management of registered musicians’ copyright.
Amounts due to the musician are collected from every user and disbursed by ZIMURA. Next time a musician passes on or falls sick and is unable to cover the bills, let us make sure we were not worsening the situation by not paying for using their music to promote our businesses.
We encourage all businesses that benefit from music to comply with the law. Be respectful of this law and support musicians by obtaining licence to playing their music at your venue.
Online Reporter