Musicians Uncollected Royalties at PRISK

Musicians across the country have been urged by the Performers Rights Society of Kenya (PRISK) to turn up and collect their pending royalty payments since the timeframe set to distribute these uncollected royalties is soon to expire.

PRISK, through a Public Notice, April 10, 2017, stated in part,

“…PRISK hereby advises that it currently holds KES 13,520798.00 in uncollected royalty payments for the distribution periods 2013, 2014 and 2015 for musicians whose recordings were in the Society’s system and monitored for airplay…” Further, PRISK stated that, according to the Society’s Distribution Rules, “all royalty payments not collected within a period of three (3) years from the date of distribution shall be transferred to the Social and Cultural Fund.”

Hence, pending royalty payments from the 2013 distribution year shall therefore not be available for collection from September 2017.

Although, quite a number of musicians, who are yet to register for membership, have turned up, there still remains a substantial number who are yet to collect their royalty payments.

Angela Ndambuki, Chief Executive Officer, PRISK, said that there are more than 500 musicians, non-members, whose songs were captured in the system and are yet collect to their royalty payments. She acknowledges that the uncollected royalties are due to lack of information about the respective rightsholders despite PRISK’s efforts to contact them to provide the necessary information.

Moreover, Ndambuki said that PRISK’s system captures all the songs submitted by the existing members. Hence, there is a likelihood of having an individual song accrue royalties for more than one musician who are either members/non-members; depending on their level of participation. This level of participation include: main artistes, track producers, featuring artistes, and session musicians.
Since PRISK distributes royalty payments annually to the members who have submitted their respective songs, this means that there will be a number of musicians who are non-members who are yet to receive their royalty payments from the songs already submitted.
In this regard therefore, PRISK urges all the musicians to visit PRISK’s website, www.prisk.or.ke and by clicking on Uncollected Royalties under Membership, they are able to check whether their names and songs have been captured in the system. They are then advised to contact PRISK by sending an email via, [email protected]