‘SABC is pouring salt into artists’ wounds as it takes food out their mouths’

In an ongoing moral and legal battle, the South African Music Performance Rights Association (Sampra) is continuing to fight for recording artists and record companies by instituting legal action against the South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC).

Sampra is applying to the courts to compel the public broadcaster to pay to use its artists’ music. Failure by the SABC to do so will inevitably lead to an interdict prohibiting it from playing tracks from the association’s repertoire — 99% of all tracks in SA.

During a financially crippling period due to Covid-19 lockdown restrictions, the SABC is being accused of directly endangering recording artists’ livelihoods and effectively ending careers by refusing to pay for Needletime Rights royalties, amounting to more than R250m over more than five years.

According to Sampra, the public broadcaster is not only flouting the law, but continues to use the intellectual property of association members without compensating them. By blatantly exploiting performing artists, the beleaguered corporation is directly infringing on their rights to generate an income from their music.

“It is more than 16 months since SA went into lockdown and the SABC is pouring salt into the wounds of recording artists. By maintaining their stance of not paying for Needletime Rights royalties, as well as negotiating in bad faith, the broadcaster is continuing in its trend of undermining Sampra’s members,” said the association’s CEO, Pfanani Lishivha.

“As Sampra, we represent more than 38,000 direct performer members and almost 6,000 direct record company members. This amounts to 99% of all tracks performed in SA  and a large number of these are played on SABC radio stations. Sampra members’ intellectual property makes up more than 95% of the SABC’s playlist. Thousands of Sampra members are directly losing an income from the broadcaster and this has resulted in dire consequences, such as members’ houses being repossessed, artists being unable to pay for their children’s school fees and not being able to pay for day-to-day expenses such as food, electricity and water,” added Lishivha.

As an organisation that administers Needletime Rights on behalf of recording artists, the work Sampra does has a direct impact on the lives of artists. Those such as legendary jazz, funk and disco singer Sipho “Hotstix” Mabuse and iconic house music producer DJ Ganyani are just some of the people who are paying with their livelihoods each time the SABC does not remunerate them for using their intellectual property.

“As artists, it seems like our plight is not taken as seriously as other industries. The lockdown has been detrimental for us, as we are not able to generate a cent. But ironically, the SABC continues to play our tracks to make the public feel hopeful about the current state of affairs and to generate advertising revenue for themselves. The SABC knows the power of music, but they are not willing to pay us for our work,” said Mabuse.