Uganda's New Copy right Law to profit artists

In August 2006, Uganda repealed the Copyright Act of 1964 that had been inherited from its former British colonial masters, thereby replacing it with an improved law; The Copy Right and Neighboring Rights Act of 2006. Unlike the former law which was civil in nature but largely unused in litigation to the detriment that many believed Uganda operated without any law protecting the rights of artists’ works, the new copyright law is beginning to bear fruits. The most fundamental difference between the old copyright law and the new one is that the latter has both civil and criminal provisions embedded in it whereas the old law lacked enforcement mechanisms.

The new copyright act provides for sentences ranging from prison time of one year to fines not exceeding 50 currency points.

According to Mr. James Wasula, the General Secretary of Uganda Performing Rights Society (UPRS) that manages and administers copyright on behalf of its local members through assignments and by Reciprocal Representation Agreements for its foreign members, the broadcaster will, with effect from this year- 2008, pay royalties for playing artists’ works on air. Wasula says that for a long time individuals and organizations have continued infringing on the rights of artists, pirating, duplicating and playing their music for economic gains with impunity. Now with the law is in place, this will definitely come to end especially if all stakeholders work as partners. The mishaps of the past are attributed to ignorance and the fact that many broadcasters, hotels, restaurants, clubs, shop keepers, college graduates and school dropouts who have failed to find jobs have resorted to burning counterfeit CDs for a living. Wasula explains that a survey conducted in 2007 in 29 town centers revealed that each dealer earns about 10, 000 Ugandan shillings (US$6) each per day through pirating.

The new copyright law seeks to provide for the protection of literary, scientific, artistic and all other intellectual works and their neighboring rights, and to provide for other related matters. It also seeks to protect all artists and the agents who sign contracts with the artists and pay an agreed-upon sum of money to them so that they can then sell those artists' music to the public. Those who sell music illegally may now find themselves in court, where they might be ordered to pay damages to the artist as well as be required to destroy any illegally obtained music in their possession. The new law also protects the artist 50 years after the ones’ death.

Wasula says that they, as UPRS, a private company championing artists’ right have experienced massive problems as the would be culprits have outwitted the courts of law by claiming that there is another intermediary body that claims to be working for artists and as such, they are not sure who to pay royalties to. He says this trade adversely affects the music industry as the legitimate music dealers are competing unfavorably with pirates so much so that the music distributors are unable to pay commensurate remuneration to artists. As if that is not bad enough, with the mushrooming FM radio, the music played on these stations has not been purchased legitimately. Wasula explains that broadcasters alone play about 2 million songs for about 45 million times per year on the FM stations alone. If they were to sign contracts, this would translate into 2 million contracts in just one year, and the artists would be much better off.

According to the new Copyright Act 2006, Radio and T.V stations will have to pay an artist whose song or work has been aired, even 50 years after his or her death. Wasula adds that radio and T.V stations would stand to gain because artists will have to subscribe for their songs to be aired for a certain period of time on the respective stations. This would in a way legitimize the “bribes” radio presenters have been getting from artists before playing their music. Enforcing the new copyright law many not be that easy for records at UPRS show that only 3 radio stations out of the licensed over 100 broadcasters in Uganda have signed up to pay royalties to artists. Many stations look at paying royalties for airing a song as a cost that will eat into the stations’ profits. Sections of T.V and Radio stations proprietors argue that by playing artists’ music on air, they are promoting the artists and their works among the public. They therefore argue that musicians gain more than broadcaster when their music is played free of charge! With this kind of thinking, it may take some time to sensitize all stakeholders and at worst culprits being dragged to courts of law before all can abide by the stipulations of the act in its entirety.

You will recall a lawsuit at the commercial courts in 2004, when Chance Nalubega sued Fred Mukubira, a music producer, for copying and selling her album Byansobera without her prior consent. Many of us, artists inclusive, dismissed the case as rather odd and that Nalubega was on a wild goose chase. But when judgment was passed the following year in February 2005, Nalubega was 10 million Ugandan Shillings richer, all from her music producer then and defendant, Fred Mukubira. Court also ordered Mukubira to burn all the remaining 853 cassette labels in his possession and restrained him from selling any copies of the album. This jurisdiction was in the archaic copyright law but it reigned supreme, perhaps it’s only a matter of time before the new law is effectively enforced. Ultimately, it should require that all stakeholder including; broadcasters, promoters, producers and the public abide by it, while giving artists exclusive economic and moral rights to protect their work and derive maximum benefit from their efforts!

Where is Culture in National Development Plans?

Where is Culture in all this? Was the question theatre and cultural practitioners posed when invited as Civil Society Organisations to make an input into the revision of the Poverty Eradication Action Plan (PEAP), now set to become Uganda’s National Development Plan (2008-2012).

The Cross-cultural Foundation of Uganda (CCFU), a local NGO dedicated to promoting the recognition of culture offered its self to act as the focal agency to contribute to this process, in particular with regard to the importance of culture in our national development. Cultural practitioners and artists in general were invited to join government’s sector working group on Social and Cultural Development to produce one of the thematic papers; “Culture and Development” that would directly inform the National Development Plan (NDP) on issues to do with culture.

Culture has, for a very long time, been marginalised in development policies. Thus, such an invitation marked the first time in history, that the practitioners had been provided with an opportunity to place culture at the centre of our national development agenda.

It was therefore timely that a civil society consultative meeting was organised in January 2008 at the Uganda National Cultural Centre. The meeting was attended by over 50 participants cutting across a spectrum of traditional cultural institutions, religious institutions, faith-based organisations, the visual and performing arts, as well as selected representatives from the Sector Working Group on Social and Cultural Development. The objectives of the meeting were to share information on the 5-year National Development Plan and other current policy processes, relevant to culture and development and also to make specific proposals on what should be included in the National Development Plan from a cultural perspective.

Mr. Stephen Kasaijja and Mr. Bakaye Lubega both from the Ministry of Gender, Labour and Social Development made presentations on the National Development Plan (NDP), the Sector Review Process (SRP), the Social Development Investment Plan (SDIP), and the Uganda National Culture Policy. This was followed by a presentation from CCFU’s Emily Drani on the role of civil society in the National Development Planning process, highlighting opportunities for it as well as some observations and issues to consider. Sarah-Ayito N’guema from the French Embassy made a presentation on the French experience in integrating culture in development.

Five focus groups: Performing and visual arts; Culture, values and development; Tangible heritage, Intangible heritage and Traditional cultural institutions, discussed and presented issues related to i) Situation analysis ii) Priorities and how these contribute to specific national objectives iii) Implementation strategies and actors, and other relevant considerations.

Participants unanimously welcomed Government’s recognition that culture has an important role to play in the nation’s development. This was realised through achievements in terms of cultural development in form of the recent policy initiatives, including: the launch of Uganda’s national culture policy, the launch of the policy on the use of local languages as medium of instruction in primary education, the development of a draft national policy on traditional and complementary medicine, the restoration of “institutions of traditional and cultural leaders”, as per the 1995 Uganda Constitution, the initial elaboration of a data base on national monuments and sites, the promotion of local languages as subjects in educational curricula, the translation of key policy documents in Uganda’s principal local languages to mention but a few.

Nevertheless, practitioners deplored the limited emphasis placed by government on culture and cultural affairs that is evident in the marginalising of culture, often considered as a “by-the-way”, instead of being central to our nation’s development. Cultural affairs only command a low priority in spending, with only 0.03% of the national budget. There is no approved plan to implement the National Culture policy and resources are grossly inadequate. This results in a negative attitude towards the arts and other cultural aspects. In addition, mechanisms to promote and maintain positive cultural values are not in place. Inadequate infrastructure has also resulted in limited or decaying infrastructure, almost absent outside Kampala. Thus, publicly owned art galleries are few, there is no art museum, and there is inadequate capacity to absorb trained man-power. The prevailing laws are obsolete and inadequate; relevant international conventions are not ratified or applied, for example the UNESCO Convention on cultural diversity of cultural expressions and UNESCO Convention on the intangible heritage. The 1967 Historical Monuments Act and its 1977 Amendment for instance currently provide for a penalty of only Shs. 2,000 for the destruction of a historical monument, yet such monuments are dear to make and carry hug and vital information behind them. With this status quo and the continued influx of the foreign arts and media forms on our local market, a lot remains to be desired from the government to promote the indigenous cultures and arts so as to enable them to compete favourably on the world markets.

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