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Bongani Ndlovu, Showbiz Correspondent
Online music platform proprietors are doubtful that the Zimbabwe Music Rights Association (Zimura) is competent enough to collect royalties from them as they believe the organisation is out of touch with the digital age.

This comes after Zimura executive director Polisile Ncube Chimhini last week said they were in talks with some online platforms to find a way for them to pay royalties following the rise of online shows.

Due to the lockdown, there has been a rise in online music shows locally that are entertaining thousands of people almost on a daily basis.

Plot Mhako who runs a vibrant online platform, Earground said it was not practical for Zimura to enforce payment although it is a noble idea.

“The thought may sound noble at face value, but not practical. It exposes how out of touch Zimura is when it comes to the digital changes on music distribution, streaming and sales.

“They have failed to deliver on their mandate on the ground (collecting royalties from radio stations) and I think they are crying for renewal,” said Mhako.

He said Zimura was incapable of pursuing royalties online.

“They seem not to understand how online royalties and copyrights work. Yes, piracy moved from the streets to the Internet, but to believe Zimura can pursue Internet piracy is farfetched,” he said.

Mhako suggested that instead of relying on Zimura to collect their royalties, artistes must be more involved in issues to do with copyrights and distribution of their music.

“Artists and their managers should instead get more informed about copyrights and online distribution and secure their content,” said Mhako.

Blessing Stot who is the organiser of the FMG Lockdown Parties and Let’s Worship Live shows had mixed feelings over the move.

“In my own opinion, this is a good and bad move. It’ll take good management for it to work well. Question is what will make the online platforms pay when some radio situations are struggling already?

“The balance to be struck is between music getting distributed via these platforms and getting the artistes to benefit via royalties because both are essential to each other,” said Stot.

Dalu Van Vodloza who organises to Bulawayo Live Sessions said Zimura was over-stretching things.

“In the interest of artistes, it’s great to have an extra revenue stream for their works, but like any other Zimura initiatives, the problem will be that the money won’t reach the artistes. They are over -stretching it. Instead, the focus should be on making the current system beneficial to artistes in real royalty earnings and coming up with ways to monitor airplay that are transparent and digital,” said Van Vodloza.
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