Ever since its formation a few years back, Copyrights Society of Botswana (COSBOTS) have received criticism as a collective society from both the artists, arts practitioners and the industry at large.

This led to a feud of the organisation’s Management that saw some of the artists ‘boycotting’ the society, questioning its mandate and the criteria used to calculate royalties, some criticising it for bringing the industry into discrepancies. However this week WeekendLife Editor, DAVE BAAITSE unravels a new digital technology that aims to solve the mystery that continues to mask the arts industry.

The new platform known as StreamBW is a robust online platform that avails the opportunity where artists can store, tag, playlist, share and market their music assets to prospective buyers. Developed by a local young social entrepreneur and music artist, Kebaswele Kebaswele, the platform does not limit anyone; it will even extend to young upcoming artists who found it very hard to breakthrough. According to Kebaswele, they found it befitting to come up with the concept because of the unfairness and opaque that surrounds the distribution of royalties.

Kebaswele said, in the next two months, they will be running the trial of the concept before registering artists. Asked about the involvement of COSBOTS, he said they have thoroughly engaged with COSBOTS as they are the main collective society and they have agreed on common grounds on the new initiative which they deem to be beneficial to all. “We have agreed with them, some artists will sign directly with us and others will sign with them, it will depend with artists”, said Kebaswele in an interview this week.       

He brought to light the fact that the new concept will use the Universal Streaming formula in terms of the rates for royalties. Artists will subscribe for a small fee for a period of twelve months and they will pay as little as 9% of their royalties when they are registered directly with them, a percentage that will be slightly less than what COSBOTS is currently charging artists.

Kebaswele said they have also engaged Botswana Communications Regulatory Authority (BOCRA) who also gave thumps up to their concept. They are currently working with them to develop a legal framework that will enhance a smooth sale of the new digital platform.
“Our marketplace provides music buyers with intuitive search and discovery tools as well as thematically and topically- curated playlists, allowing them to find and license the music they need quickly and painlessly. Additionally, our system facilitates easy administrative clearances by providing disparate, interested parties, such as writers, publishers and producers with a means by which to connect their fractional ownership shares and thus make the content available for licensing”, he said.

Kebaswele said they are committed to maintaining transparency with their music providers and clients. He is of the view that their right holders maintain complete control over pricing and choose to make their music available for automated transactions or elect to only accept offers from potential buyers.   

“Music buyers, such as brands, creative agencies, music supervisors, filmmakers, and advertisers now benefit from having access to an incredible selection of music that has been designed with their uses in mind. Music that can be discovered, licensed or purchased, easily and efficiently”, he narrated. According to Kebaswele there is too much transparency in regard to this online platform.

“This thing is self calculated and each and every artists can calculate for themselves how much they made per month but the royalties will be paid annually, there will be no cheating”, he said. He also revealed to this publication that in terms of music they will be staging StreamBW online musical awards annually. The awards will be based among other things the most downloaded song and the most streamed song or artist. Artists will have the opportunity to direct their fans to the stream using social media when they inquire about their songs.

The past week saw what detractors labelled social media piracy when Charma Gal’s new song which is believed to have leaked before its mastering and mixing was shared across all the platforms in social media, especially on WhatsApp. Kebaswele said this was an opportunity from a big artist like Charma Gal to have made more money and benefiting from the platform.

“After her last offer which took the industry by storm, it is evident that her fans have been waiting in anticipation for her new release, that is why the ‘demo song’ went viral and that was an opportunity”. He also said this platform will act as a music hub or data bank for local content more especially music. Right now when you want old music from legendary artists such as Stigga Sola or Stampore to just mention a few, you hardly get them or find nothing on the internet.

 “Hollywood Productions come to Botswana to shoot movies but they hardly use our own music because there is nowhere they can find it, this is simply because it is not available online and only a few modernised have subscribed to iTunes”, he said. Amid in- brawls that continue to besiege COSBOTS, this week the industry woke up to the shocking revelations that founding chairman, Solomon Monyame, has resigned under uncertain and unclear circumstances.

Botswana Entertainment Promoters Association (BEPA) is one organisation that was heard voicing out their grievances pertaining the concerns of the association and its dealings. However COSBOTS remains the only body that exists to protect the copyrights and paying royalties to registered copyright holders in the country.