Making a living as a musician is hard. Making money on record sales is rarely possible so concerts need to be sold out and airplay needs to be boosted, and even with a hit single, the royalty checks can sometimes be few and far between. That is something the Music Copyright Society of Kenya’s (MCSK) is trying to mend and according to CEO Maurice Okoth, the digitization of music has greatly improved the process. Established in 1983, this non profit-making collective management organization works with authors, composers, publishers and arrangers of musical works and helps collect royalties on their behalf.

“We have outsourced software that digitalizes all the music that comes in. From our system servers, the antennae can detect whenever the music is played and for how long.” This includes over radio, TV and even public address systems. Having adopted this method in January 2008, Kenya is now the second country in Africa monitoring music digitally.
Thankfully, digital monitoring can trace back airplay time for up to six months. “That’s the good thing about MCSK,” says Judge Blackduo, a local hip-hop artist. “My single ‘Real Hip Hop’ earned me some royalty money last year while I had released it just five months before,” he says. “It was popular on Ghetto and Homeboyz radio stations.”

Maurice Okoth reckons that MCSK can detect between 70% and 80% of the total music played. He argues that the remaining 20% is accounted for by music [that] artists haven’t forwarded to the organization. MCSK collects KES 261 million annually—and that doesn’t cover the entire market potential. Okoth explains, “Sometimes broadcasters do not provide logs that indicate how much airplay some songs have had, making it difficult to ascertain how much is owed [to] a musician,” Okoth admits.
Another challenge the organization faces is that royalties are based purely on airplay, which makes it less attractive for underground artists to be members. To remedy this MCSK is setting up a foundation for musicians who don’t get that much airplay to push for their recognition as well. Moreover, MCSK has had to face users who refuse to pay license fees for use of artistes’ music as well as lack of corporate law understanding among content users and members.

But despite all these issues, MCSK continues to grow. Last year, the inaugural MCSK Awards Ceremony, held at the Laico Regency, feted top earners in the music industry. Corporations that faithfully paid their dues to MCSK were also recognized at the event. “The top earner last year got [approximately] KES 500,000. This year we already have one registering [close to] KES 900,000 while the financial year is just around midway,” he disclosed.