Just a day after renowned song composer and songwriter Patience Namadingo took shots at the Copyright Society of Malawi (Cosoma) in a Facebook post exposing a number of flaws, Cosoma has refuted the claims.
Namadingo said he only has registered 2 albums with Cosoma, but they collect money from 3 of his unregistered bodies of work as well.
The artist says he wants to take the Cosoma to task: “we need to find out how much we are contributing and how much my music is worth and I want to prove this, hence we need to audit Cosoma.”
He then declared war on COSOMA and companies like Airtel Malawi and added that he is ready to lead other artists with similar grievances.
Hitting back at the artist’s claims, Executive Director of Cosoma Dora Makwinja, said they are open to getting to being audited but Namadingo needs to follow the right procedures.
“Things must be done in the right manner. We have invited Patience Namadingo to our meetings but he has never attended them; so, he is not up to date with information,” said Makwinja.
In his Facebook post, Namadingo also claimed he is not a member of the Cosoma.
However, the body’s head of Documentation and Distribution Sharick Kumtengo revealed he is actually a member.
“He’s a member of Cosoma having filled all the forms, one has to be aware that becoming a member comes in two-fold, after production of works, one can bring his works and become a member. It also comes when a song for instance has been used by a member like broadcasting stations then we contact the user, and as for Namadingo, he was called that there was his money and he made the declaration, and he did.”
Last month, COSOMA disbursed royalties are from the Blank Media Levy for the period of July 2020 to December 2020. According to COSOMA, 3,640 works and a total of 1,055 artists have benefited from money amounting to K212,984,478.01.
The highest-earning artist received K2,166,541.98 while Namadingo was one of fifteen artists whose royalties hit K1 million.
