Pretoria - Royalty collection agencies and the South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC) should be encouraged to effect payments of royalties to musicians retrospectively from 2006 when the Copyright Act and the Performers Protection Act came into legal force, said the Department of Trade and Industry (dti) on Friday.
Earlier this month, following its regular meeting, Cabinet announced that the Copyright Review Commission (CRC) Report was to be released soon.
In May, the dti said the commission, appointed to review concerns raised by the music industry regarding the collection and distribution of royalties to artists, had completed and presented its report to Minister Rob Davies.
That royalty agencies and the SABC should be encouraged to effect payments to musicians was one of the recommendations of the commission that was established in November 2010.
The commission, which was chaired by a retired judge, completed its work by submitting the report to Minister Davies and the Deputy Minister Thandi Tobias-Pokolo.
"The report, which was adopted by Cabinet with its recommendations, has wide ranging recommendations, including the formation of an interdepartmental task team to implement resolutions related to copyright matters, such as amendment of Copyright Act and related legislation," said the dti.
The commission has also recommended that ICASA should include as a condition in the broadcaster's licences that compliance with needle time and copyright obligations be compulsory, and that a repeated failure by broadcasters to comply should lead to cancellation of their licences.
The CRC also recommended that local content for public, private and community radio stations should be 80%, 50% and 80%, respectively.
The commission was not impressed by the fact that over 70% of royalties go outside South Africa and it was also concerned that royalty collection was very low.
The commission is of the view that collecting societies should collaborate with government agencies in order to grow the industry. The industry can set its own annual target collection and collections worth R1 billion is achievable in a period of five years, it noted.
According to Davies, the report is released to the public/industry so that it can start to engage with the report in preparation of the meeting of industry with the President in November 2012.
"It is hoped that the creative industry, in particular the music sector, will feel some relief as their plight will be alleviated to a great extent," said Davies.
Davies added that the recommendations of commission were also being incorporated in the draft Intellectual Property (IP) Policy that will be released for public comment soon.
The report can be accessed on: www.thedti.gov.za (www.thedti.gov.za/DownloadFileAction?id=680).
