Please pay up or stay at home . . .

for duty. I decided to man the entrance to experience what it is like to be a doorman.
It was hell on earth as I battled with almost 50 percent of the 233 patrons who came that night who did not want to pay to go in.

First it was the workers at the Book Cafe who all claimed they were on duty that night. When the number of “workers on duty” came to 16, I began to question the management what duties these guys had come to perform. Then it turned out that only three out of the 16 were actually on duty.
Next, came a journalist who claimed he had come to cover the band for his “popular” newspaper. I told him that he should have made plans in advance instead of just turning up on the night.
To make matters worse, he had come with two ladies and another gentleman whom he also claimed were entertainment correspondents. They all wanted to get in for free. You can guess what I told them.

Next was this chap with his girlfriend wanting to go in free. I asked him what criteria he was using to entitle him free entrance. He said he used to work with Oliver Mtukudzi. I told him that Sam Mataure, Oliver’s manager, was inside and he had not only paid for himself, but for two others who were with him.
Anyway, I said to this gentleman that I would verify his claim with Sam. By the time I had brought Sam to the door, he was gone.

Then there were three men who claimed they were from the President’s Office. They said they had to go in free because they were on a special assignment to visit the club.
They even flashed their identity cards. I asked them which department in the President’s Office they belonged to. They told me that they were members of the Intelligence section (CIO).
I then asked one of them to give me his card for close scrutiny. He did, and I told them to hold on while I confirmed with Comrade Happyton Bonyongwe (Head of CIO). “Do you know Mr Bonyongwe?”,

one of them asked me. I replied, “Yes”. (I lied). I then went on to pull out my mobile phone and pretended to dial his number (which I did not know). Before I even started to speak, the guys had wrestled their identity card from my hand and disappeared.
A few minutes later, walked in a Government minister who even refused to be stopped at the door. When challenged by one kid I had asked to go and get payment, he said, “Fred knows who I am”. End of story.

Then came about a dozen people who claimed they were friends of the band and had been invited by the band to come and show their support. On asking members of the band, who were now on stage, this turned out to be untrue. Only three people had been invited on that night.

The other nine kept hassling me throughout the night demanding free entrance, which they saw as a right because they wore dreadlocks. I asked them a simple question: “Do you see those elderly persons on stage? How do you think they are going to feed their families if you do not want to pay?” No one answered this although they claimed they had come to support the band.
You see the established policy is that members of this seven-piece band are allowed one guest each at any show. Two of them rarely have guests, which means that only five guests are entitled to free entry.

By the end of the night, around a hundred people had tried to gain free entry into this gig and if this experience is what is happening at other artistes’ shows then there is need to look at this business seriously. Musicians have been hit on both sides by a double-edged sword, first at the entrances to their shows then through piracy.
Efforts to combat piracy seem to be failing as more and more Zimbabwean vendors seem to find piracy a lucrative trade.

Pirates, all over the world, are known for reaping where they have not sown.
In musical terms, a pirate is one who infringes another person’s copyright. What we are most concerned about here is the unauthorised duplication of one’s original recording for a commercial gain without the consent rights of the owner, e.g. pirated copies of compact dics (CDs), audio-cassettes, DVDs and videos.

Last week I was approached on one of the streets of Harare by a vendor who was selling Leonard Zhakata’s latest CD, “Gotwe” for one dollar a copy. I asked him how he had obtained this CD. He told me he had contacts in the trade and that his contacts can produce any music that I want within a day. I did not buy, but I was puzzled.

There are several underground operators specialising in producing fake recorded music in the form of CDs and cassettes and selling these to unsuspecting consumers.
There are also those who make business using CD writers by simply buying blank CD-Rs and then copy any music they want or which they are asked to copy for a fee.
This undermines the earning capacity of the originators of this music. Millions of dollars which the artistes are supposed to earn are therefore lost in this racket.

In South Africa, CD writing has become big business and most of it is out of pirated material. For instance, last year, over 30 000 CDs and cassettes were confiscated and crushed by the authorities in Durban while 30 000 units consisting of CDs, DVDs and cassettes were also destroyed in Polokwane by the Recording Industry of South Africa (RISA).

Another organisation known as Moshito Music Industry (MIO) claims to have confiscated thousands of CDs and cassettes from flea markets in Johannesburg. They also showed through school surveys that 70 percent of students in South Africa had copied music on CDs or had illegally downloaded music files from the internet using gadgets known as MP3s, O.G.G., Microsoft WMA., or the Ipod.

The digital age has brought about software and hardware which enable consumers of music to download it freely through the internet.

Efforts put in place by groups such as Digital Rights Management (DRM) have failed to assist the artiste since the DRM movement is more concerned about enriching the software and hardware companies rather than the artistes through the sale of technology which enables the consumer to download music.
Sources have revealed that on-line music piracy is responsible for 2,6 billion downloads of copyrighted music files every month through the sale of software programmes such as Kaza A and

Grokster. It is estimated that some 278 million people are now signed up to participate in on-line music piracy using Kaza A.
Piracy must be stopped at once. The Zimbabwe Government can set a precedent which other nations will follow by introducing legislation which forces all retailers to put up the price of blank CDs to

one dollar each instead of a dollar a dozen, the current going price. The pirates would then find it difficult to make profit. Nuff said.
Feedback: [email protected]