The Kenya Copyright Board (KECOBO) has withdrawn the licenses for three Collective Management Organizations (CMOs) over failure to comply with the law.

The CMOs are the Kenya Association of Music Producers (KAMP), Performers Rights Society of Kenya (PRISK), and the Music Copyright Society of Kenya (MCSK).

The three are Collective Management Organizations (CMOs) licensed to collect royalties on behalf of rights-holders.

In a statement, KECOBO noted the three organizations failed to meet and comply with licensing regulations.

“This follows show cause letters issued to the CMOs for non-compliance to the licensing conditions specifically breach of administrative cost limit and diversion of royalties into an undeclared account which operations are unmonitored by KECOBO,” the statement read in part.

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The three organizations had earlier been provided with provisional licenses and had offered them time to meet the rules set by KECOBO.

“The Board, at its meeting of August 11, 2021 further took note of the recent distribution of royalties where the CMOs distributed Sh41 million (35.9%) instead of Sh79 million (70%) from Sh114 million collected at the end of July 2021," the statement continued.

This was done in defiance to the KECOBO license conditions. The distribution excludes money received and expensed in the other accounts out of KECOBO monitoring system.

The three organizations have since been suspended from collecting royalties for three months.

“The Board, after being dissatisfied with the CMOs’ explanation in response to show cause letters, invoked the provisions of Section 46 (9) to 46 (12) of the Copyright Act to deregister KAMP, PRISK and MCSK. Following the revocation of licenses, collection of royalties has been suspended for a period of three (3) months or until further advised,” the statement continued.

The Board will, in conjunction with relevant ministries, shortly commence the process of seeking views on reforming the CMOs legal structure to prevent a recurrence of the misuse of funds.

"Meanwhile, the Board wishes to request rights holders to be patient and await public consultation on this matter," the statement concluded.