By Jimmy Chazama:
Creatives, who included managers, Wednesday invaded Copyright Society of Malawi (Cosoma) offices in Lilongwe to raise concern over Blank Media Levy royalties’ payout.
The copyright body recently disbursed K1.8 billion as funds accumulated through the Blank Media Levy.
The latest payouts for the period April 2025 to March 2026 saw musicians being allocated over K1 billion, writers getting K519 million and filmmakers carting home over K259 million.
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Blank Media Levy, also known as Private Copying Levy, is a government-mandated scheme in which a special levy is charged on all recordable media as compensation to rightsholders for the loss of income.
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The disbursement has seen some artists questioning how Cosoma comes up with the amount for each artist.
Some of the notable players who visited Cosoma offices included Akometsi Entertainment Managing Director Kelvin Sulugwe and Madness Entertainment Chief Executive Officer Kelvin Ngumuya.
The team wanted to meet Cosoma Executive Director Dora Makwinja but she was not available.
Sulugwe said they were upset that the Cosoma chief was unavailable, having fixed the meeting last week.
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“We, as industry leaders, want them to clarify issues as regards the Blank Media Levy. There are so many gaps,” Sulugwe said.
Ngumuya, who manages Joe Ikon, said Cosoma’s system was failing young creatives.
“Let them be transparent and tell us how they make their calculations. Otherwise, we cannot tolerate this anymore,” he said.
Makwinja, who travelled to Blantyre for other engagements, said in a separate interview that the team did not confirm that they would visit the offices, as advised during the previous meeting.
“I had other important engagements in Blantyre and, in our previous meeting, we agreed to meet on Wednesday [yesterday] but I told them to confirm and they did not,” she said.
Makwinja said Cosoma was open to engagement and that she did not refuse to meet with members of the team.
“There has to be proper communication and [on] this, they need to do better; otherwise, we are open to give them information on our operations,” she said.
