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Musicians, actors yet to receive over Sh100m collected from levy
More than Sh100 million collected from the blank tape levy is yet to be released to musicians.
More than Sh100 million collected from the blank tape levy is yet to be released to musicians, actors, producers, scriptwriters, book publishers, and visual artists.
The levy was enforced in September 2023 when the government began collecting the money following an amendment introduced in the Copyright Act.
In March 2025, Ms Ummi Bashir, the Principal Secretary for Culture, Arts and Heritage, told the National Assembly Committee on Sports and Culture that the Kenya Copyright Board (KECOBO) had collected Sh104 million from the Blank Tape levy.
Private Copying Remuneration (PCR), popularly known as Blank Tape Levy, is a fee collected from importers of blank media and recording devices into the country.
Every time an importer imports a gadget such as memory cards, laptops, smartphones, flash disks, photocopiers, printers, decoders, smart TVs, game consoles, smart watches, flash disks, or any device able to collect and store copyrighted works, a portion of the price goes toward compensating artists, authors, and producers.
For instance, the importation of video game consoles, memory cards, and portable hard drives attracts a blank tape levy of Sh200 for each unit.
For computers, smartphones, and smart watches, the government charges 1.5 percent of each unit's purchase price to go towards the levy. This means that a smartphone imported at Sh30,000, Sh450 will be charged towards the blank tape levy.
The logic behind blank tape is that, since these devices can store and copy copyrighted content, that is your favourite songs, movies, or software, then the copyright holders deserve a cut for the potential revenue they're losing when you make that personal backup or copy.
In other words, every time you back up a song or copy a movie for your personal use, the law assumes that small fee has already gone toward paying the artist, actor, or author for that privilege.
Since the introduction of the blank tape levy, the collection has been done by three bodies: KECOBO, Kenya Trade Networks Agency (KenTrade), and Kenya Revenue Authority (KRA). KenTrade invoices and importers and manufacturers after confirming the number of devices being released to the Kenyan market. KRA is KenTrade’s collection agent, which then transfers the money to KECOBO for distribution to respective copyright holders - the creatives (actors, musicians, etc.).
KECOBO has been keen to distribute the millions collected so far, while it keeps 20 percent, but that effort has been dealt a blow following the filing of a suit by the Music Copyright Society of Kenya (MCSK) at the High Court.
MCSK, the country’s oldest and largest union representing over 16,000 musicians, obtained an order barring the distribution of the blank tape money.
The collective management organisation laments that the procedure of distributing the money by KECOBO lacks transparency and fairness.
MCSK argues that the Copyright Acts, which detail what every category of copyright holder is entitled to get from the funds, have locked its members out of the millions.
MCSK's biggest issue is with Section 30B of the amended Copyright Act,
“Section 30B perpetuates discrimination to the extent that it excludes compensation to copyright owners of musical works. Over the years, we’ve been assured that this anomaly would be corrected, yet Section 30B still directs that PCR funds (blank tape levy) be shared only between performers and producers of sound recordings, completely excluding the authors, composers, and publishers who create the works in the first place. The remuneration under Section 30B does not provide for compensation to copyright owners, the authors, composers, arrangers, and publishers of musical, artistic, and literary works, nor to broadcasters or other related rights owners,” argues MCSK.
The society also wants to be allocated the biggest share of the blank tape levy, stating that it deserves 60 percent of the total revenue collected because it has the largest representation of Copyright holders.
As such, MCSK wants the court to compel KECOBO and the Attorney General to steer Parliament toward amending the Copyright Act to explicitly recognise authors, composers, arrangers, and publishers as rightful beneficiaries of the blank tape levy and allocate 60 per cent of the total revenues collected to the society.
However, KECOBO is opposed to this proposition, stating that the distribution of its share proposal of the blank tape levy to copyright holders mirrors successful practices in countries like Malawi, Nigeria, and Ghana.
Under the share proposal framework, the government agency will keep 20 per cent of the blank tape millions, allocate 8 per cent as agent commission for the contracted agents Webtribe T/A Jambo Pay, and 2 per cent to KenTrade for managing the collection system, and distribute the remaining 70 per cent to the creative sector.
“The 70 per cent share of blank tape royalties allocated to the creative sectors shall be distributed to the Rights holders in music and sound recording, whose share percentage will be 37 per cent. The audio-visual right holder, which includes film producers, actors, scriptwriters, gamers, and animators, will get 15 per cent. While literary works right holders (book authors and publishers, and visual arts) will receive 18 per cent,” says KECOBO’s acting Executive Director George Nyakweba in his affidavit.
KECOBO also wants the suit to be dismissed, stating that there is no express or implied exclusion of MCSK members from the blank tape share of the revenue, stating that Section 30 and 2 of the Copyright Act expressly mention related rights and ‘owner of the copyright’, which implies all right holders of Intellectual Property works are catered for.
The High Court is now set to issue further directions on the matter when the case comes up for mentioning next month.
In the meantime, the collection continues while the money remains held up in the government coffers.
Until 2019, the Kenyan Copyright Act did not provide for Blank Tape Levy (PCR) until its introduction with the 2019 Amendments.
The Blank Tape levy was never implemented until September 2023, when KECOBO expressed intentions to start enforcing the collection following further amendments to the Copyright Act in 2022 that gave it the power to oversee the process of collection and disbursement of the money.
By February 28, 2025, the blank tape levy collected stood at Sh103,723,307; the collection is ongoing.
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