Piracy is killing creators in the developing world: Uganda

And here's a story from Uganda, where musicians are desperately trying to organize themselves so that they can take action to fight piracy and obtain and enforce IP rights so that they can actually make a living through their creativity.

And no, the Creative Commons is not the answer. Nor is a treaty on "access to knowledge."

I reproduce the article below in case the link goes down.

New Vision (Kampala)
Sept. 26, 2006

Kampala

"WE are not playing. We want to make money and live well through music," Richard Kawesa said during a Music Forum Foundation (MFF) press meeting at Blue Africa Bar recently.

Kawesa, the MFF's president, said creative people are rich because their rights are protected unlike Ugandan artistes.

For long Ugandan recording artistes have had to do with poor payments for their creative brains.

Since July when several artistes met to address the anomaly, they have renewed their resolve to form a national music body that overseas the restructuring and regulating of local music with an objective of transforming it into a respectable and organised industry.

The meeting also featured an election where Travis Kazibwe was voted vice president; Dick Matovu secretary; Joanita Kawalya assistant secretary and Ragga Dee finance secretary. Other members are: Ras B assistant finance secretary; Tshaka Mayanja public relations officer, with Eddy Sendi and Halima Namakula as his assistants.

Now registered as a Ugandan NGO, MFF comprises recording artistes, instrumentalists, songwriters and music producers. MFF currently has a membership of 446 musicians countrywide and some industry stakeholders.

Kawesa said in their fight against music piracy, MFF has designed holograms that would be fixed on original CDs. CDs without such holograms will be rendered as pirated.

To support your artistes, buy original stuff from them.