‘For government to take us seriously, we need to go on strike for two months’- Frustrated Maro tells fellow musicians

Maro has taken to social media to share his thoughts on what he believes should be done to help the Ugandan music industry recover.

For almost two years, Uganda’s entertainment industry has been out of business due to Covid-19 induced lockdown.

Maro believes that while numerous singers are begging for money from the government and Operation Wealth Creation (OWC) Chief Gen. Salim Saleh to make ends meet, as entertainers, they need to come together and find an everlasting solution that will help their business to be revamped.

“I just want to say to those who are waiting for government to pay us, we are supposed to pay them through taxation after they have helped us lay down a foundation or a structure of a sort that makes us a properly monitored and taxed business.Luckily we already have UPRS we just need to work with them after they have learned our rights especially the right to know how they get to the sums we earn and how that revenue is collected,”Maro said.

” If it means standing still for about two months as an industry as the process takes place, no performance, no local music plays anywhere we can survive if we have, since February 2020 to date without bookings.”

Maro added that with a proper business structure that includes all users of their intellectual property getting it from only licensed sources ( Distributors), it wouldn’t matter if they are signed or not, artistes will get what they deserve to get and they wouldn’t need to perform every day to feed their family every other day.

“Just imagine if the music library paid 100 shillings to every artist they have in their folders each time they made copies for sale! Library owners take children to school have built houses fed families as the musicians spend to get a chance at fame forgetting how rich they could be if only one thing is to be done.

Building a structure is not building an association like UMA.

And we don’t need to be so United to have a functioning UPRS. We need the right GOU support to enforce the Copyright law and educate the public about it, tell them that artists are not mad at you, it’s just business, but buy the music / product from the right sources.

Lastly i request every artist to at least get their song on an aggregator platform before releasing it, aggregators like Tunecore, CD baby, etc they make you a publisher and they are the publisher to 36 and more digital platforms but most of all, they give you a ISRC code that is simply your bar code or copyright ©! From when they release your single, you can go ahead and post it wherever you like. That is the free copyright you have for now as Ugandan egotistic elders finish fighting to realize the actual goal, you get on there and get some pennies and secure longevity of your product.”- he wrote.