President William Ruto has unveiled a significant policy change targeting Kenya’s music sector, revealing that the administration will implement the e-Citizen platform to combat cartels that exploit artists through non-transparent royalty arrangements.
Addressing attendees at the Kenya National Drama Festival State Concert held at State House in Nairobi on Friday, Ruto stated that digitizing royalty collection and distribution represents a pivotal moment for creative professionals who have persistently voiced concerns about inadequate compensation and insufficient accountability.
To guarantee that individuals within the creative sector receive their just earnings, we have undertaken a substantial step by transferring royalty collection and distribution to the e-Citizen platform,” Ruto explained.
This represents a courageous and revolutionary reform.
The Head of State indicated that royalty collection has functioned without transparency for many years.
For an extended period, royalty collection has been characterized by opacity, and that is an undeniable reality,” he emphasized.
He referenced previous examples to demonstrate the extent of the issue, highlighting a case where a collective management organization collected Sh109 million on artists’ behalf but distributed only Sh13 million.
This indicates that the legitimate recipients, the artists, received only 12 percent while cartels, intermediaries, brokers, and all parties in between retained the remainder,” Ruto noted.
This is not just inequitable, but also morally wrong,” he added.
With the new approach, Ruto explained that all involved parties will monitor collections and distributions in real time, a measure he indicated would remove secrecy from the process.
Today, we are rectifying this situation, ensuring that royalty collection occurs on a transparent platform, enabling visibility into the total amount collected,” he stated.
He further mentioned that the platform will reveal how revenues are distributed.
It will be accessible to everyone, and it will also be possible to understand how it is allocated among all stakeholders.
The President asserted that artists are the principal recipients of creative work and consequently should obtain the largest portion of royalties.
My position is that the legitimate owners of royalties are the artists, not the collection entities, not any other parties,” he clarified.
They should merely receive a small percentage.
These reforms emerge amid mounting pressure from creative sector stakeholders who have consistently voiced apprehensions regarding mismanagement within collective management organizations.
Ruto conveyed assurance that the system will restore equity in the industry and dismantle established networks that have flourished under non-transparent frameworks.