Renowned gospel musician Reuben Kigame has gone to court and obtained orders to halt a punitive regulation against creative content makers from implementation.
The Government has announced plans to commence collection of the Blank Tape Levy,a levy imposed on items that may be used to carry copyright-protected content for private copying and is payable at the point of entry into Kenya or the point of manufacture if the manufacturer is in Kenya.
The levy as currently proposed, will not benefit all copyrightable content creators and will serve the interests of CMOs while leaving out the interests
and concerns of the real content creators who were neither consulted on this levy nor assured benefits from its implementation given the poor collection and distribution history by CMOs who have not been remitting payment to creators as required.
The money will be forwarded to the three Collective Management Organizations ,Music Copyright Society of Kenya, Kenya Association of Music Producers and Performers Rights Society of Kenya.
The law currently excludes some content creators,Authors, Composers,Publishers and Arrangers meaning that the three Collective Management Societies, all members of the Music Copyright Society of filed a Petition at the High Court in Nairobi yesterday, 12th September 2023 challenging this law and to ensure that the money collected is fairly distributed across all copyright owners.Following this move the Court has stopped the distribution of the money until the 16th of October 2023 when the matter will be heard.
Kigame Petition does not challenge the collection of the Blank Tape Levy,the petition seeks to protect the collected money from being unfairly distributed to exclude one class or category of copyright owners.
