President Yoweri Kaguta Museveni has given a green light to the operationalization of the copyright management system, a program aimed at strengthening the intellectual property rights and providing better protection for the creatives in the country.
“When the tape recorders came, the main problem was recording someone’s song on the radio and multiplying it for economic gains. Now this technology should be able to tell us who has played my song and where or that what you have sung is for the other person,” President Museveni said.
During the meeting held on Friday, February 28, 2025, in Rwakitura that was also attended by the Deputy Speaker of Parliament, Rt. Hon. Thomas Tayebwa, the Minister of State for Gender and Culture, Hon. Peace Mutuuzo, and a section of musicians led by Mr. Edrisah Musuuza alias Eddy Kenzo, the Senior Presidential Advisor for Creatives and President of the Uganda National Musicians Federation (UNMF), President Museveni was happy to learn that a copyright management system has been completed to address the emerging challenges in copyright protection and safeguard the rights of content creators.
The integrated copyright management system will help the creatives register their works, monitor their use, and, where possible, receive payments for the use of their works.
According to Dr. Joel Isabirye, the principal development economist at State House, a musician will register their works, like a song, and then different places that have been licensed to play that music will be monitored by the system. At the end of a certain period, like a month or a year, the musician will collect money that has been paid by that particular business to use this music.
“Every business that uses music for entertainment charges people to come and get entertained. If I have a bar or a hotel and I am playing music by Afrigo Band, the people who come to that bar have come to drink or pay to enter because music is playing either on video or on speakers, so the President and artists think that at least you should pay a little bit more to the musicians because you’re using their work to make money,” Dr. Isabirye said.
“If you own a radio station or a TV station and you’re playing 100% nice local music every day, you attract many advertisements because the only reason people are listening to you is because you’re playing Sheebah Karungi or Juliana Kanyomozi songs. The musicians, the artists, don’t want all that money you’re making from the advertisements, they just say, let us be partners in business. Let us get a percentage of what you are earning because you are using our work to bring your listeners, who then you sell to advertisers. So, His Excellency, the President has recognized the need for this to be enforced and implemented, and that is why he directed the State House scientists to develop the integrated copyright management system, which has been completed,” he added.
To enforce the law, each bar in Uganda will be required to have a chip or machine installed in their place of entertainment, and the owner must accept for him to be granted a license by the ministry of local government to continue doing business. The chip will be regularly inspected to ensure its working, and if anyone attempts to remove it, a signal will reflect on the system.
“So, it’s really about cooperation, and the money will not be much. It will be just something to recognize that we are using these musicians’ works to make money. Police will then come in to enforce whether all places playing music have the recommended devices provided by this system to detect music. UCC will be able to detect all the songs that have been played through that system. If they have not paid, the monitoring agency, UCC, will communicate that bar X, Y, and Z have not paid for this year. Kindly enforce or close the bar,” Dr. Isabirye noted.
Over the years, musicians have said that they have not fairly benefited from their work due to the absence of favorable copyright law, and according to Dr. Isabirye, the copyright management system will be able to allocate the money paid by a particular bar, radio, or television station according to the number of times a song has been played but not categorize between “big or small” artists.
For instance, if Shs. 1 million is paid by a bar, radio, or television station as a license fee to play local music, every artist will earn a percentage of that 1 million according to how many times his or her song has been played. If it has been played 60 times, the artist will earn 60% (Shs. 600,000) out of the Shs. 1 million, and the remaining Shs. 400,000 will be shared by the rest of the artists according to the number of times their song was played.
“Many musicians, after their career maybe has gone down, some would maybe, unfortunately, fall ill, and we struggle to fundraise for them because they are not able to sing anymore. So those artists will earn forever, because people are still playing their old songs, and they can even sit at home and earn instead of going on stage when they are old and can no longer be strong enough to perform, they can sit at home and remember their grand grandchildren can keep earning from this for as long as those songs are played,” Dr Isabirye explained, while expressing gratitude to President Museveni for endorsing and commissioning the Copyright management system, saying it will attract compliance, and agencies such as the Uganda Communications Commission, and Uganda Police, Uganda Revenue authority, ministry of local government and others will be willing to implement it in a joint effort.
