ZIMBABWE Music Rights Association (Zimura) has called for political leaders to join in the fight against piracy as the country commemorates the World Intellectual Property Day tomorrow.
The day — celebrated annually on April 26 — was established by the World Intellectual Property Organisation in 2000 to raise awareness of how patents, copyright, trademarks and designs impact on daily life as well as to celebrate creativity, and the contribution made by creators and innovators to the development of societies across the globe.
“Piracy will remain a problem in the arts industry until we have a political will. As a country we used to have a problem with touts but the challenge was reduced after those holding high political offices intervened.
“As a result, we are calling for stiffer jail penalties as this helps in reducing the scourge. It is, however, difficult to stamp piracy completely as it is a world problem,” Zimura executive director Polisile Ncube-Chimhini said.
The Zimura executive director said the organisation will resume raids this year to bring offenders to book.
“As an association of musicians, we cannot just sit back and relax while watching pirates doing whatever they want. We have lined up some blitz on piracy perpetrators as part of our efforts to end the scourge,” Ncube-Chimhini said.
She further said that piracy had reduced musicians’ earnings to almost nothing, adding the situation had been worsened by runaway inflation in the country.
“Musicians used to benefit a lot from royalties, but nowadays with the high inflation being experienced in the country, the value of their earnings has been reduced tremendously. Of late, musicians complain about poor royalties and there is no solution in sight. Our economy is not stable.
“As an organisation, we distribute royalties to musicians, but the issue is the value of the royalty. We deal with the local currency and you know what happens with it; the value it has today is not the value it will have tomorrow,” she said.
However, Ncube-Chimhini said despite piracy, there was also something to smile about as Zimbabwe had come up with laws that protect IP.
“Zimbabwe has a number of Acts of Parliament that protect IP including The Copyright and Neighbouring Rights Act (Chapter 26:05), which Zimura implements,” she said.
In a previous interview with this publication, United States based musician Thomas “Mukanya” Mapfumo accused those in power for allegedly fuelling music piracy in the country.
“I have carried out research on the causes of music piracy in our industry and the results were shocking. Political heavyweights were the ones owning factories of music piracy in Zimbabwe and because of that, piracy will not end any time soon.
“Imagine, the factories of music piracy were guarded by Zanu PF youths. That’s not how it should be done, political heavyweights are killing youngsters’ industry,” Mapfumo said then.
The Corruption singer said he tried to engage the government two years ago, through the former Arts minister Kazembe Kazembe, but up to now nothing had been done.
“The government is reluctant to solve problems in the music industry because the big fish are benefiting from the rot. What the leaders are doing to youngsters is what was described by Bob Marley when he said ‘kill them before they grow’.”