Making a Case for the Copyright: An Effective Law Could Guarantee Good Music Videos in Uganda

For the longest time I had been no fan of Bebe Cool’s – and always wondered why I would fall head over heels for someone so stuck up and belligerent…

Musician in recording studio

However, only an ill wind blows nobody any good. Somehow I found myself listening and watching almost only Bebe’s music off his Go Mama album and wow, how much he got out of his comfort zone – especially for his pocket’s sake!

But then again I sank into a slump, wondering if it made any sense to have just one good man among a myriad of mediocre others.

This reminds me of a TV Show I watched a couple of years earlier.

                                              

The host posed a question; “why can’t we make better videos?” But a Ugandan artiste quickly answered just as interrogatively, “do you think that the money made by most artistes in a year is enough to make one good video?”

Whatever there’s to say, we find ourselves in this vicious circle – most Ugandan videos are way below [MTV] average quality.

As a matter of fact, everybody is whining about the low standard of everything Ugandan artistes do. The poor sound and picture, pitiable costumes… not to mention the daft storylines. That’s the truth maybe, the stuff is arguably miserable.

And the question lingers; what makes these indigenous works of ours to be of such inferior quality?

We know, for certain, that Ugandans are talented and smart. This means that they can do better than the low standards they are producing now. Many critics, for that matter, agree that what’s missing is a proper prognosis of how we got here and how we might make a paradigm shift.

A saying makes its rounds in this town that if you allowed technology to get a head of you for just a year, well, you’d be absolutely antiquated. Unfortunately Ugandans keep 2003 and 2007 software to do projects which are meant to compete on the world market. Apparently the equipment is so expensive that they can’t afford to get hold of it and if it ever got here, few artistes can afford to rent it. But whose problem is that? Sad reality is that you and I have a part in it all.

Look here; we use and abuse our artists’ hard work every day and we do it with utter impunity. For God’s sake, these artists make an investment; they use their meager resources to make these projects come to life. Only for us to take it all free of charge. On the contrary, these artists need our help and in the long run, this is beneficial to all Ugandans.

All they need is to earn a little more off the albums they put on the market. They need an operational Copyright Law.

Just what business sense is there in making a music video which is worth $15,000, only for one little guy on the city street to give away the entire album for shs.1000.

If you have done any entrepreneurship, you should know better. Someone simply needs to have consideration for these artistes of ours and it begins with you.

In United States, the Congress [legislature] understood beforehand what Hollywood and other forms of art could be in terms of revenue to government even in creation of jobs in the country. In the same drive Congress restored expired copyrights several times. For instance, after the world wars 1 and 2, there were special amendments to the Copyright Act to permit for limited time and under certain conditions the recapture of work that might have fallen into the public domain. It was to protect each and every one’s creation.

The fact is that people used to create a lot of “interesting” stuff here in Uganda and never got paid quite as they deserved, hence limiting creation of big-budget/high-quality works. If creating quality stuff otherwise paid its worth, artistes should be more than proud to invest a little more in quality productions. As of today, it doesn’t.

Therefore, if you were by any chance hoping to write a book, hit the recording studio, make a movie, well, you are exactly the right person to campaign earnestly for the restoration of the Copyright Law.