Cosoma to disburse K1.7bn in Blank Media Levy royalties

Copyright Society of Malawi (Cosoma) says it will disburse about K1.7 billion in Blank Media Levy royalties to creatives from July 20 with musicians set  to receive the largest share.

Cosoma public relations officer Catherine Mitungwi Chiumia in an interview said over K1 billion will go to musicians, K519 million to literary works while K259 million will be allocated to film.

In addition, Chiumia said the organisation has moved away from cash payments and is urging its members to update their Know Your Customer (KYC) details by providing banking information or mobile money accounts where they will receive their payments.

“We are encouraging all creatives to update their KYC details by adding their banking details or mobile money services where they would like to receive money from, as Cosoma has stopped giving money by hand. Nobody should go to our offices for money collection,” she said.

In previous years, Cosoma publicised top 10 beneficiaries who received the highest amounts but the organisation said that will this time it will only disclose the total amount disbursed and category allocations without disclosing individual payments.

 “We want to treat these as confidential. We will publicise how much money has gone to each category, but we will not publicise how much has gone to who,” said Chiumia.

This also comes after some artists raised concerns over the publication of individual beneficiaries and called for confidentiality in the distribution of  the royalties.

Chiumia further said that while film royalties currently benefit producers, Cosoma is working on ways to ensure other players in the film value chain also benefit from copyright and related rights.

“For films, money goes to producers, but we are looking for ways on how this can go beyond to include other players. This is where we want to be and where we are heading,” she said.

Malawi Writers Union (Mawu) public relations officer Chifuniro Banda welcomed the disbursement saying writers have benefitted from the Blank Media Levy over the years and continue to do so.

He urged more authors to register their works with Cosoma to qualify for future royalties.

“There is a misconception that only musicians benefit from the Blank Media Levy, but writers have also benefitted from this. I encourage all writers to register their works with Cosoma,” he said.

Blank Media Levy royalties are funds collected from the importation and manufacture of devices and storage media capable of reproducing creative works, which are then distributed to copyright holders as compensation.