Mohalenyane Phakela
MUSIC distribution company, Msejah Media, has embarked onto a project to ensure that local musicians can sell their music on over 100 online platforms.
Msejah Media distributes music to various online platforms where people across the world can download such music at a fee which will be given to the artistes. The company also gets music licences and international codes such as the International Standard Recording Code.
The ISRC system is used internationally to identify recorded music and videos. A unique ISRC identifier is permanently encoded into the recorded material.
Speaking to the Weekender this week, Msejah Media co-founder, Moddaw Kabi, said that local artistes lose money by distributing their music for free online when they could be making money.
“I released my album online last year through platforms such as iTunes and Spotify and I realised many that artistes thought it was complicated whereas it is an easy way to make money,” Moddaw said.
“There are a lot of people around the world who download music every minute, even if they do not know the artiste, which translates to money for the owner. So, I developed Msejah Media to ensure that people make money out of their music.
“We hardly get paid to perform here at home. We spend a lot of money producing music, packaging it on compact discs which people are reluctant to buy.
“Apart from that we would upload songs on platforms where people can download them for free and we would celebrate when we have high numbers of downloads yet no revenue is accrued from the investment.”
He said he partnered with an international licensing company from South Africa so that to ensure that the music is protected before being distributed to the online selling platforms such as iTunes, Spotify, Deezer, Tidal, Spinlet, Juke, Kkbox and You Tube among others.
“At Msejah Media we help one get licensing for renditions, remakes, covers, parodies and bootlegs of any song as long as he knows the original scripter. They can sell the tracks as their own and earn money.
“I have a deal with the South African licensing company which gets each artiste the ISRC through which one’s music can be protected.
“We charge a certain fee for distribution and another small fee for licensing but the returns are never less what a person would have paid to us,” Moddaw said.
