Lucius Banda has signed a publishing deal with Afro Platinum Media, a one stop shop for music, film, event production, packaging, distribution and marketing that represents artists from South Africa, Botswana, Zimbabwe, Mozambique and Angola.
Afro Platinum Media is based in Johannesburg and is affiliated to the Southern African Music Rights Organisation (Samro), Recording Industry of South Africa (RISA) and the Film and Publication Board (FPB).
The deal will see Lucius benefitting from Samro, which is a copyright asset management society mandated by the South African Copyright Act and which protects the intellectual property of music creators by licensing music users, collecting licence fees and distributing royalties to music creators.
SAMRO represents more than 12 000 Southern African music composers, lyricists, authors and music publishers.
In addition to music performing rights, the organisation also administers Mechanical Rights and Needletime Rights.
SAMRO has reciprocal agreements with 225 collecting societies in 150 countries allowing it to collect music royalties on behalf of its members around the world.
Speaking to The Nation from Johannesburg, Lucius said the publishing deal is an opportunity he has been looking for the last 20 years.
“I once signed a South African deal but they did not like my type of music and the contract did not last very long,” he said.
Lucius added that the publishing company puts him in a position that he can now compete with the rest of the world as airplay of his music will be controlled by Samro.
“My music royalties will no longer be collected by the Copyright Society of Malawi but by Samro, even for songs played in Malawi, they have a machine that automatically records each time my music is played on radios,” said a seemingly excited Lucius.
He explained that signing the deal is an honour and acknowledges him as an artist good enough to sell his music on the same platform as other musicians in the region and across the world.
“I want to open doors for other Malawian musicians, there are fine musicians such as Lulu, Dan Lu and others that need opportunities such as these,” he said.
