THE Zimbabwe Music Rights Association (Zimura) has engaged a local company to develop software that monitors broadcasters to ensure radio and television stations do not produce false log sheets to rob artistes by evading royalty payments.
OWN CORRESPONDENT
Zimura executive director Polisile Ncube said they had initially sought to acquire a state-of-the-art monitoring and recording equipment, but opted to engage a local company to develop software instead.
“We did not buy the monitoring machine as we discovered that, it comes preloaded with 25 million international tracks of which local works are not included so it was not going to be of much use to our operations. Instead, we have engaged a local company to develop software for Zimura that monitors broadcasters and will give us the same results that the monitoring machine would if it had recognised local works,” Ncube said.
She said the disadvantage of the machine was that if a local artiste’s song had similarities to an international musician, the machine would log the song as that of the international artiste.
“The monitoring system is meant to benefit artistes in the sense that all works used by broadcasters would be recorded for distribution purposes. Currently broadcasters remit inaccurate log sheets. At the moment I can’t say how much it will cost to develop the software as this will be determined by costs of the gadgets that go into it such as servers. Its function is to record all music played by broadcasters 24/7 so that we do not miss any musical airplay,” Ncube said.
Most artistes have accused local radio stations and the State-owned Zimbabwe Broadcasting Corporation of not paying royalties.
Ncube added that artistes should register with Zimura as this would assist them in identifying their works.
