KECOBO speaks out on Sauti Sol copyright fight with Azimio, blames ‘third party’

The Kenya Copyright Board (KECOBO) has come out to address a complaint by boy band Sauti Sol against the Azimio la Umoja One Kenya coalition party over the usage of their song in the political outfit’s running mate announcement on Monday.

The coalition featured Sauti Sol’s hit song ‘Extravaganza’ in a video unveiling NARC Kenya leader Martha Karua as its presidential flagbearer Raila Odinga’s running mate ahead of the upcoming August polls.

The video however drew the ire of Sauti Sol which hit out at the political formation for what it termed as “blatant disregard of our right to control the use of our copyright.”

However, KECOBO now says it has established that a third party is responsible for infringing on Sauti Sol’s rights, and not necessarily the Azimio political formation.

“We have since established that the recording was done by a third party and not Azimio Coalition. The third-party agency is making arrangements to settle the matter amicably with the complainant,” the copyright body tweeted on Tuesday.

In an earlier statement, KECOBO’s Executive Director Edwin Sigei stated that Azimio had obtained a public performance license which allows it to play both local and international music at its rallies.

The issuing of public performance licenses, Sigei went on, falls within the power of Collective Management Organisations (CMOs) which allow entities to sample creative sound recordings during public performances.

“This is to clarify that separate sets of rights in a sound recording are managed concurrently by the composer, publisher and collective management organizations where they are operational,” said Sigei.

According to Sigei, the public performance license does not however allow the use of sound recording as a soundtrack with visual images in a film, video, television show, commercial or other audio-visual productions, as was the case when Karua was unveiled as Odinga’s running mate.

“In this case synchronization rights are at issue as such a synchronization license is needed. A synchronization license can only be issued by the composer and publisher. They have the authority to negotiate and issue a synchronization license,” said Sigei.

“In this matter the composers/performers allege that this was not done. Therefore the use of sound recording for synchronization in the manner outlined by the complainant without authority is therefore infringement and thus violates Kenyan Copyright Law.”

According to Sigei, since the issue is civil in nature, parties involved can settle the matter with or without compensation.