Since the early 2000s, President Yoweri Kaguta Museveni had been pressuring his government officials to develop a mechanism that could improve the earnings of the creative sector.
In his vision, the creative economy would spur growth like many other service oriented industries.
In 2001, Professor Paul Collier, a close friend of the president was appointed by the World Bank to lead a committee to look into how the music industries in African countries would tap on their music industries for economic development.
President Museveni took a keen interest in these discussions because they aligned with the National Resistance Movement (NRM) government’s plans for modernising the economy.
While putting pressure on his officials to deliver systems to transform the sector, in 2016, the president observed that the creative economy was an opportunity for African countries to tap on for econonic transformation.
In 2024, the president summoned Engineer Sheba Kyobutungyi, his trusted head of the State House Scientists, and directed her to develop a system that could protect artistes’ works and facilitate improved earnings for the sector. For many years, the president had been training scientists in various specializations under the supervision of Engineer Kyobutungi. He was sure they were up to this particular task.
The Kyobutungi led State House Scientists worked late into the night, sometimes working all weekend to deliver the best system they could for the creative sector.
“The instructions were clear. We were required by the president to come up with a system that could sustainably provide a solution for the creatives to ensure that their works are registered and protected and users of these works compensate them. We developed the system.” Kyobutungi said.
To ensure that the system conformed with the needs of the sector, they worked closely with the Minister of Culture, Uganda National Musicians Federation (UNMF), Uganda Performing Rights Society (UPRS), Uganda Registration Services Bureau (URSB) and other stakeholders in the creative economy in Uganda.
On Friday 28th February 2025, the State House Scientists together with the Uganda National Musicians Federation (UNMF) presented the final version of the system to the president who had demanded that they complete it before the beginning of March 2025.
At the meeting, the president noted how technological changes had impacted the creative sector requiring new mechanisms of protecting the sector.
“When the tape recorders came, the main problem was recording someone’s song on the radio and multiplying it for economic gains. Now this technology should be able to tell us who has played my song and where or that what you have sung is for the other person,” President Museveni said.
How the System works
According to Dr. Joel Isabirye, the principal development economist at State House, a musician will register their works, like a song, and then different places that have been licensed to play that music will be monitored by the system.
At the end of a certain period, like a month or a year, the musician will collect money that has been paid by that particular business to use this music.
“Every business that uses music for entertainment charges people to come and get entertained. If I have a bar or a hotel and I am playing music by Afrigo Band, the people who come to that bar have come to drink or pay to enter because music is playing either on video or on speakers, so the President and artists think that at least you should pay a little bit more to the musicians because you’re using their work to make money,” Dr. Isabirye said.
“If you own a radio station or a TV station and you’re playing 100% nice local music every day, you attract many advertisements because the only reason people are listening to you is because you’re playing Sheebah Karungi or Juliana Kanyomozi songs. The musicians, the artists, don’t want all that money you’re making from the advertisements. They just say, “Let us be partners in business, let us get a percentage of what you are earning because you are using our work to bring your listeners, who then you sell to advertisers. So, His Excellency, the President has recognized the need for this to be enforced and implemented, and that is why he directed the State House scientists to develop the integrated copyright management system, which has been completed,” he added.
To enforce the law, each bar in Uganda will be required to have a chip or machine installed in their place of entertainment, and the owner must accept for him to be granted a license by the ministry of local government to continue doing business. The chip will be regularly inspected to ensure its working, and if anyone attempts to remove it, a signal will reflect on the system.
“So, it’s really about cooperation, and the money will not be much. It will be just something to recognize that we are using these musicians’ works to make money. Police will then come in to enforce whether all places playing music have the recommended devices provided by this system to detect music. UCC will be able to detect all the songs that have been played through that system. If they have not paid, the monitoring agency, UCC, will communicate that bar X, Y, and Z have not paid for this year. Kindly enforce or close the bar,” Dr. Isabirye noted.
Over the years, musicians have said that they have not fairly benefited from their work due to the absence of favourable copyright law, and according to Dr. Isabirye, the copyright management system will be able to allocate the money paid by a particular bar, radio, or television station according to the number of times a song has been played but not categorize between “big or small” artists.
For instance, if Shs. 1 million is paid by a bar, radio, or television station as a license fee to play local music, every artist will earn a percentage of that 1 million according to how many times his or her song has been played.
If it has been played 60 times, the artist will earn 60% (Shs. 600,000) out of the Shs. 1 million, and the remaining Shs. 400,000 will be shared by the rest of the artists according to the number of times their song was played.
“Many musicians, after their career maybe has gone down, some would maybe, unfortunately, fall ill, and we struggle to fundraise for them because they are not able to sing anymore. So those artists will earn forever, because people are still playing their old songs, and they can even sit at home and earn instead of going on stage when they are old and can no longer be strong enough to perform, they can sit at home and remember their grand grandchildren can keep earning from this for as long as those songs are played,” Dr Isabirye explained, while expressing gratitude to President Museveni for endorsing and commissioning the Copyright management system, saying it will attract compliance, and agencies such as the Uganda Communications Commission, and Uganda Police, Uganda Revenue authority, ministry of local government and others will be willing to implement it in a joint effort.
The meeting was attended by members from UNMF and the State House science team, led by Engineer Sheba Kyobutungi, among others.