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Music can be described as the art of arranging and combining sounds to be able to be produced by the human voice or by instrument
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MCSK FAQ's
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FAQ Membership
1. What must I do to copyright my work?
2. What does my Copyright mean to me?
3. How can I exercise and protect my Copyright?
4. How can MCSK help me?
5. How can I become a member of MCSK?
6. What will it cost me to become a member of MCSK?
7. May I make use of a Psuedonym?
8. What does MCSK do with the Royalties it collects?
9. Will MCSK help me in my old age?
10. What will happen to my Rights when I die?
11. Can MCSK help me with my other Copyright problems?
12. Am I obliged to join MCSK?
13. May I translate someone else’s lyric or set it to music?
14. May I make an arrangement of someone else’s Composition?
15. What are my rights when I compose or arrange a work, or write a lyric on commission?
16. What if I do so in the employ of someone else?
17. What is the Berne Convention?
18. What is the Universal Copyright Convention?
Nothing! According to South African law the copyright in your work belongs to you by reason of the fact that you created the work. In some other countries the law requires that you conform to certain requirements, such as registration and the payment of a fee, but here, recognition of your copyright is automatic - which means that as long as the work is original and has been reduced to writing or some other material form. So there is no copyright protection while something is an idea in your head. Copyright starts only when that idea has been reproduced in some tangible, perceptible form like a manuscript or a disc. To repeat therefeore: Your work must be original, and not an unauthorised copy of someone else’s copyright work! A word of caution: While you may feel convinced of your copyright in a certain work, you may have some difficulty in proving your right if someone else suddenly alleges they wrote the work before you. In that case proof of the date of creation becomes all-important, and you would be well advised to make timely arrangements for such a contingency. In this connection MCSK provides a service for its members. If you notify your work with MCSK as soon as it is created, we would, in the event of any dispute, be prepared to certify the date of such notification, and that could place on the other party the onus to prove that they wrote the work before this date. For a modest fee MCSK could furnish you with a Certificate of Notification which could be used as evidence in any dispute. You are not obliged to make use of MCSK in this connection. You could lodge a copy of your work with anyone else - for instance your bank or your attorney - as soon as you have produced it, and ask them to give evidence on your behalf in any subsequent dispute about authorship.
Whether you are a composer or lyric writer, the copyright in your work means that you have the exclusive right to do specific things with that work, or to authorise anyone else to do these on our behalf. These are:
(i) reproducing the work in any manner or form;
(ii) publishing it;
(iii) performing it in public;
(iv) broadcasting it;
(v) transmitting it in a diffusion service;
(vi) making an adaptation of it; and
(vii) treating an adaptation of it in any of these six ways.
You are at liberty to assign any or all of these rights to someone else. You may also retain these rights but grant licences to others to exercise them. Your copyright enables you to earn your living (at least in part) through the royalties which must be paid by those who exploit your music. As your copyright will last as long as you live and for a period of 50 years after your death, it will form part of your estate when you die. A very special part of your copyright is your moral right, which means your right to object to any distortion, mutilation or other modification of any of your works, which may be prejudicial to your honour and your reputation.
You are at liberty to assign any or all of the rights which are mentioned above (“What Does My Copyright Mean To Me”) to anyone else. If you decide to retain them, you may grant licences to other persons to exercise one or more of these rights in certain areas, for certain periods, and on such conditions as you may decide. Such licences can be either exclusive or non-exclusive.
Copyright agreements can be quite complicated, and you should seek the advice before you sign any agreements involving your rights.
MCSK is always happy to assist its members guidance in their copyright problems. You are, of course, at liberty to administer your performing copyrights yourself, but in practice you will find that difficult. You have no way of knowing where and when your music is being performed - in a concert in London or New York, a disco in Paris or Rome, a night-club in Tokyo or Toronto, a broadcasting station in Madrid or Montevideo. Even if you knew of such performances, what control could you exercise? This is where MCSK can help you, for MCSK protects and administers the rights of its members throughout the world through its affiliate newtork.
MCSK is mainly concerned with three of the six rights listed above - the rights of performance in public, broadcasting and diffusion. But we can also assist you with others. When you become a member, you must assign to MCSK the performing, broadcasting and diffusion rights in all your works. MCSK’s operational territory embraces Kenya mainly and partly the neibouring countries i.e. East Africa. It issues licences to music-users throughout that large territory - banks, broadcasters, cafés, concert impressarios, disco operators, hotel proprietors, retail stores, night clubs, restaurant owners and others - to perform any music of its members against payment of proper fees. MCSK also has Agreements of Reciprocal Representation with similar organisations in more than 100 countries throughout the world with which it remains in continuous contact. It authorises those organisations to administer the rights of its members in their respective countries, and, conversely, they authorise MCSK to administer the rights of their members in Kenya. MCSK has an active and efficient corps of Licensing Representatives who visit all establishments in which music is likely to be performed in some manner or other, in order to ensure that all such performances are properly licensed and that the appropriate fees are regularly paid to MCSK for subsequent computation of royalties and distribution to its members and affiliated societies.
There is no joining fee or annual subscription, only a few simple requirements. Individual composers and lyricists can join if they have works that are active - that is the music must have been broadcast, or performed in public in a significant way, for at least the two years prior to joining. It must also have been transmitted through a diffusion service (music that is, for example, played in a shopping mall). Publishers can join MCSK if the publishing entity has a catalogue of several works of which at least two thirds must have been commercially published. Some or all of the writers represented by the publisher must be members of MCSK or its affiliated societies.
To apply you will need to fill in both an application for membership of MCSK form as well as notification of works forms - the latter are required to be filled in with each new work composed.
Membership forms are available from our membership department. Ensure that you fill in each step of the membership application properly and once you have completed your form, you must send it to MCSK’s Membership Department in person beacause of your signatures.
Nothing! There is currently no entrance fee and no subscription to be paid. MCSK is a company limited by guarantee, registered in terms of the Companies Act, and is a non-profit-making business. Its shareholders are its members, but as there is no share capital, their liability is limited by guarantee. This means, in practice, that if MCSK were ever to be wound up, a member’s contribution to the costs of liquidations would be limited to a maximum of R2. After 40 years of operation, such an event is unlikely to occur!!!
Yes! MCSK realises the necessity of pseudonyms in certain circumstances, and allows any member to use up to two, but no more. If you wish to make use of a pseudonym for some of your works, you must furnish MCSK with full particulars,otherwise we cannot ensure that you receive the appropriate royalties when a work by your pseudonymous other half is performed. Unless the member concerned decides otherwise, MCSK treats his or her pseudonym as confidential, in accordance with the principles of professional secrecy, and will not disclose it to anyone else without the member’s permission. As the choice of the same or similar pseudonyms by different members may lead to some confusion, we suggest that you consult MCSK before you decide on your choice of a pseudonym. That will give us the opportunity of consulting our catalogue of names and ascertaining whether the same or a similar name is already used by another composer or lyricist. This would enable you, in good time, to choose a different pseudonym and so avoid confusion.
Throughout the year MCSK issues licences to music-users within its operational territory and collects the appropriate fees for the public performances of music. Most of those licensees are required to send MCSK returns of the musical works performed. These returns are analysed daily by MCSK’s staff, and the results captured on computer. At the end of every year the collected licence fees are distributed to the composers whose music has actually been used and to their publishers, less the costs of administration, amounting to about 23% and certain deductions for specific purposes, such as the Retirement Annuity Fund for MCSK’s members and the MCSK’s Endowment for the National Arts. The distribution is done on the basis of the daily analysed performances returns in the course of the year. This means that every composer receives a share of the collected licence fees which corresponds to the reported proportion of his or her music which was performed during the year. If the programme returns show performances of music by a composer of whom MCSK has no record, the corresponding performances are noted and data kept as work in progress for a period of four years. If, within that period, MCSK discovers who the composer is and where he or she lives, the accumulated fees are paid. If at the end of that period the composer has still not been identified, those royalties are brought back into account for distribution with the distributable income during the first year thereafter.
Yes, and in various ways. In the first place MCSK will continue administering your rights even after you have, for whatever reason, stopped composing. If your music is still being performed, MCSK will collect the appropriate royalties and pay them over to you as long as you live. In addition to that you may continue benefiting from MCSK’s Retirement Annuity Fund for its members until you retire, which is compulsory at 70 years of age. This Fund is completely financed by MCSK, without any direct contributions from its members.
Your copyright will last as long as you live and for a period of 50 years after your death. It will, therefore, form part of your estate, and MCSK will continue to administer it during all that time on behalf of your heirs, paying out the collected royalties to them in accordance with your wishes as expressed in your will.
Possibly. Although we are primarily concerned with the rights of public performance, of broadcasting and of diffusion, we are happy to try and assist our members if they have other problems in the field of copyright. We always advise members not to sign any contracts affecting their copyright without first submitting these to independent professionals for scrutiny and advice. It happens from time to time that a composer feels that their tune has been copied or his right otherwise infringed by another; but as actions for infringement of copyright are notoriously expensive, that member cannot take the risk of going to court to seek redress. An amicable solution may, however, be possible. To try and solve problems of this kind without the costs of a lawsuit, MCSK created a Music Advisory Committee, consisting of a number of prominent South African music experts, to which such disputes can be submitted for expert opinion and advice.
The decisions of this Committee are, of course, not legally binding on the parties, but they do sometimes lead to amicable solutions.
No, there is no obligation on you to do so. You are the owner of your copyright, and in theory you are at liberty to administer it yourself if you so wish. But in practice you will find it quite impossible to do so. That is why the worldwide system of organisations for the collective administration of copyright was devised. It is a system which has stood the test of time, with the first organisation for the administration of performing rights in music founded as long ago as 1851. There are now no fewer than 200 of them all over the world and their number is growing steadily. There is only one way to ensure the worldwide protection of your performing rights - join MCSK!!!
Yes, but only if the author has been dead more than 50 years. If he or she is still alive, or if his or her death occurred less than 50 years ago, you must first obtain permission from the composer or from whoever owns the copyright in that lyric. An author has the exclusive right to make an adaptation of his or her work or to authorise anyone else to make such an adaption. This means that neither you nor anyone else may do so without his or her permission. Translating a lyric amounts to making an adaptation, and the same applies to setting it to music. In both cases you require the permission of the copyright owner. However, this applies only to lyrics which are still in copyright - in other words, any lyric of which the author is still alive or has been dead for less than 50 years. If the author has been dead for longer than that, his or her lyric is in the public domain and you are at liberty to translate it or set it to music. If you wish to translate or set to music a lyric which is still in copyright, and you do not know where to find the copyright owner, MCSK may be able to help you.
Yes, but only if that composition is in the public domain - in other words,if the composer has been dead for more than 50 years. If he or she is still alive, or if his or her death occurred less than 50 years ago, you must first obtain permission from the composer or from whoever owns the copyright in the composition. Here, again, MCSK may be able to assist you in finding the details of the person to whom your request should be directed. MCSK has the names and certain essential details of about a million composers, authors and publishers from all over the world in its computer database, and will help you as far as possible.
According to the law, you retain the full copyright in your composition, your arrangement or your lyric unless you contract otherwise with the person giving you the commission. Make sure, therefore, that you read the commissioning contract carefully before you sign it, as it may stipulate that the copyright in the work shall belong to the person or body commissioning it. If it does, you should try to have that provision deleted or amended. If you are a member of MCSK, you will be safeguarded against the loss of your rights of public performance, of broadcasting and of diffusion of your music. When you become a member, you assign those rights to MCSK, and so any subsequent contract in which you purport to assign them to someone else will be null and void. But you could still lose the other components of your copyright, like the rights of publication, of reproduction, (i.e. recording) and of adaptation, unless you take good care to retain them. To sum up: Be careful about what you sign, and seek the advice of independent professionals before you sign any contract which may affect your copyright.
When you compose a piece of music, make an arrangement or write a lyric in the course of your employment by someone else under a contract of service or apprenticeship, the copyright in that work belongs to your employer. The operative words are in the course of your employment, and they mean that the production of such works must fall within the scope of the duties for which you were employed. In the case of works produced outside the scope of such duties the copyright will belong to you.
Here is a simple illustration:
If you are employed by an Advertiser or an Advertising Agency to write lyrics and/or compose the music for advertising jingles to be used in radio or television, then the copyright in all the jingles so produced by you will belong to the Advertiser or the Agency, and it will not matter whether you wrote them at the office or at home.
But if you write a poem or a song or a string quartet, that could not be considered as falling within the scope of the duties for which you were employed, and the copyright in those works will belong to you. And once again it will not matter whether you wrote those works at the office or at home.
What matters is not the place where or the time when it was made, but the character of the work in relation to your contract of service. So much for works made under a contract of service or apprenticeship. If, however, you are not in the service of or apprenticed to the person for whom you produce a work, the copyright in the work normally remains with you. In both cases - the contract of service and the contract for service - the position can be changed by agreement between the parties. Make sure, therefore, that you understand the terms of your contract before you sign it. And if you are in doubt, consult independent professionals.
This is an International Convention signed at the conclusion of a series of conferences held in Berne, the capital of Switzerland, in 1884/1886 to devise a system for the international protection of works of the spirit. The signatory states of this Convention formed themselves into the so-called Berne Union for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works. The Convention established certain minimum standards of protection, and every signatory state undertook to ensure that its own national copyright laws would conform to those minimum standards.
Among the main principles of the Berne Convention there are two which must be mentioned here:
NO FORMALITIES. This means that the national legislation must recognise an author’s copyright automatically, and may not require him to conform to any formalities as a condition precedent to such recognition; and,
ASSIMILATION or NATIONAL TREATMENT. This means that a signatory state must,as it were, assimilate the works of the citizens of other signatory states and afford them national treatment, in other words it must give them the same protection as it gives to the works of its own citizens.
Since the signing of the Berne Convention in 1886 the technological explosion of our century has brought many new and unforeseen ways of exploiting works of the spirit,particularly music - the disc player, the tape recorder, broadcasting, television, DVD’s, the computer, satellite, internet transmission, and other. In order to keep pace with all these technological developments the Berne Convention has been revised at regular intervals, and it will continue to be so revised. This means that the copyright laws of the signatory states must also be regularly revised and brought into line with the latest developments. South Africa got its first Copyrights Act in 1916, a second one in 1965 and a third in 1978.
The Berne Convention requires that its subsidiaries shall adhere to the principle of No Formalities. This has meant that a country whose national legislation required compliance with certain formalities - whether in the shape of registration of works or otherwise - could not join the Berne Union. One of those countries was America. In order to build a bridge between the Berne countries and the others a Conference, convened under the auspices of UNESCO in 1952, drafted another convention known as the Universal Copyright Convention.
The most important feature of that Convention is that it greatly facilitates compliance with any formalities that may be required in the legislation of a signatory country - this can be done by simply displaying on the fly-leaf of any printed copy of the work the symbol © together with the name of the copyright owner and the year of first publication. The Universal Copyright Convention or UCC has made the international protection of copyright more comprehensive by bringing into the fold a number of countries which were not able to join the Berne Union. Between the two of them the membership of these conventions now embraces most countries of the world. In 1988 America at long last amended her Copyright Legislation in such a way that she could join the Berne Union.
However, the UCC continues to play a useful role as a bridge between the Berne countries and certain others.