Source: http://www.weekendpost.co.bwArticle by: Dave Baaitse
Music Lab, Botswana has penned a deal with South Africa’s Sheer Publishing Company to represent music rights holders in Botswana.
This essentially makes Music Lab the first in Botswana to provide music publishing. Technically, this means Music Lab already represents 40 percent of the South African music that is played in our local radio stations. “The idea is not to focus on royalty collection but rather to market artists so that they can endure and penetrate further,” said Seabelo Modibe, Director at Music Lab.
Asked about how they will make money, Modibe said the agreement is that they get a certain percentage of what they have collected in royalties. He explained that Music Lab has already signed with one of the local Producers, Robert Daggie, and they will be training others to become sub-publishers.
Modibe said they are also looking forward to working with a lot of local artists who have volumes or have their music playing regularly on radio stations. He said he is very happy to be partnering with Sheer. He however said since they are just starting, he will not take up a lot of artists but just a few, a minimum of 20, to start with.
He also highlighted that he will represent folklore musicians for free, making it his company’s social responsibility. “This involves a lot of work and you can imagine how many songs I will be managing with Daggie only, we are talking of more than three hundred songs,” he said.
According to their website, Sheer Publishing is one of Africa’s largest independent Publishing houses and is currently looking to expand its client base within the African diaspora. Sheer Publishing’s mission is to provide a comprehensive range of copyright services to clients, both domestic, Continental and international.
Sheer Publishing is a full-service, mid-sized, independent publishing company that is quickly growing its market share. They have grown their top line earnings 25% in a very difficult year for the local music industry, and are proud of the fact that some of their clients have been with them since they started in 1996.
The company has well over eighteen years’ experience of administration of intellectual property rights nationally and globally. Sheer Publishing has close links with the collecting societies based all over the world. Sheer Publishing is also a direct member of SAMRO, MCSK and COSON, the copyright collection societies in South Africa, Kenya and Nigeria respectively.
Sheer Publishing offers the ultimate one stop solution for all deals. They have music placements on movies such as District 9 and the Oscar winning Tsotsi and the Academy Award nominated, Searching for Sugarman. Sheer Publishing has placed music on television shows such as Private Practice, Jacob’s Cross and Big Brother Africa and they have also been instrumental in successful commercials such as Castle Light, Vodacom, MTN, Makro, Cadbury’s PS, Wimpy, Engen and Ackermans just to name a few.