By Arts Reporter
Zimbabwean artists in the past few days have taken copyright infringement battles to youtube with some song’s having been taken down by the google owned audio and video streaming firm in the last few days.
The ordeal which started as a fallout between popular gospel couple Amai and Baba Charamba and chanter, Jah Signal following the formers report against the latter about the musician’s copyright infringement on two of their songs has seen other musicians and record labels follow suit.
The fallout which started over 5 years ago when Jah Signal relased his debut song ‘Shinga Muroora’ which was argued to follow the rythm of the gospel mucisians’ Kana Vanhu Vangu song was followed by another infringement of the song ‘Tengai Mafuta’, a last year release.
In a letter published by the Charamba’s they noted that, “No consent was sought, no consent was granted and for us, this was a very clear infringement of copyright laws. For both songs, he did not acknowledge the original composer which is the norm. There’s also a breach of moral rights,”
The war which has been seen differently by social media users was also fast to claim the sculpt of Award winning Dancehall chanter, Wallace Chirumiko, was the biggest artist to face the axe after Kenako’s copyright infingement request was approved for their songs, Dissapear and Mirror.
Winky D was not to be outdone as he also inturn removed the remainingsongs from 2015 album, with Kenako in a move that perhaps showed the artist’s disguist over Kenako’s actions.
According to youtube, the process of reporting and submitting a complaint follows the below sequence.
“After a removal request is submitted, YouTube reviews it to make sure it has the information required by applicable copyright law and shows no signs of abuse. If the removal request passes the review, YouTube removes the allegedly infringing content to comply with applicable copyright law.”
The move has also triggered fake news as social media has become abuzz with false stories on which other songs have been pulled down and threats on allegations by artist’s.
Copyrights while being an integral part of the art industry internationally have not met the same fate in Africa as fake Compact Disk’s, claims against nonpayment of royalties, USB sharing of music and film’s and art in general are a daily norm.