Strengthening the Creative Industries for Development in ... - unctad

24 PART 3. CREATIVE INDUSTRIES POLICY REVIEW
Industrial Property, and in full compliance with the Agreement on Trade-related Aspects of
Intellectual Property (TRIPs) of the World Trade Organization. 63
A copyright law exists in Mozambique (Lei do Direito de Autor e Direitos Conexos Lei no. 4/2001 de
27 Fevereiro). 64 It covers literary, artistic and scientific works; in addition, computer software is
explicitly identified. The law covers the life of the author plus 70 years, while a term of 50 years
applies for performers’ rights and sound recordings, and 25 years for broadcast programmes.
According to the law, the responsibility is on the injured party or his legal representative to initiate
legal proceedings in defence of infringed rights.
Action: The existing copyright administration needs to be enabled. The legislation is in place;
however its implementation needs to be revised.
The Associação Moçambicana de Autores (Mozambican Association of Authors) (SOMAS) was
established in 1998 and has the responsibility of a collecting society. It is a private institute but a
representative of the MEC, the Director of the INLD, is on the Executive Board. SOMA does not
receive funds from the government but receives funding from Scandinavia. SOMA has two licenses
and only collects from TV Mozambique and the Radio Mozambique. They collect a lump sum and do
not receive statistics on how many times a film has been programmed or how many times a song was
played on the radio. 65
For the time being SOMAS only collects rights for the music industry. Since it began collecting, it has
made three payments to local artists. Their average annual collection has been $10,000. Only the two
public institutions make the payments and just for the music sector. In recent years, the association had
no real increase in the amount collected, although there was an increase in its membership. In
consequence, members of the association receive a percentage of the overall collection, which is
divided by the number of members and not relative to the programming of their work.
In November 2008, the Procuradoria General da Republica announced that more robust action on the
part of the government against piracy and counterfeiting was needed.
Action: It is necessary to improve the functioning and the methodology used by SOMAS so that it can
work more efficiently. It also needs more human resources and better computer systems. This is an
area in which UNESCO could provide some assistance. In the context of the United Nations
Development Assistance Framework project, the International Confederation of Societies of Authors
and Composers (CISAC) is already providing some technical assistance to SOMAS. 66
There is no provision in the law to oblige private users to make payments. The current lack of
implementation of the legislation means that SOMAS is unable to collect from the private sector. For
example, there are four other main private radio stations in Mozambique, in addition to many others
throughout the country, but no agreements are signed with radio stations other than Radio
Mozambique.
Many artists are currently registered in South Africa because there is no incentive to be registered in
Mozambique.
Action: Encourage the creation of a national federation of collecting societies, which would regroup
the different creative industries in a type of loose affiliation.
According to discussions with various artists, it became clear that many sell their rights outright
according to the buy-out concept. For example, one usually sells the rights for an artistic work for a
63 UNCTAD/International Chamber of Commerce (2001).
64 See Ministério da Educação e Cultura (2007).
65 Discussions with the Director of SOMAS, Maputo, 3 September 2008.
66 When we visited SOMAS during the fact-finding mission, an international expert was working at SOMAS.
The joint mission invited him to attend the stakeholders’ meeting held in September 2008.