MCSK's Profile

About Us

Make life beautifull for those who make our lives sound beautifull

To be a world-class African society Collecting Management Organisation with a commitment to solid management, cost-effective services as well as quality business ethics and values. and we strive for:

• Convenience
  Excellence
  Trust
  Relationships

The music Copyright Society of Kenya (MCSK) was established in 1983 with the objective to protect the intellectual property of composers and authors, as well as to ensure that composers and authors talents are adequately credited both locally and internationally for music usage. The organisation is the primary representative of music performing rights in Kenya.

The organisation functions as a collective administration society that negotiates music user licenses. Its main role is to administer the “non-dramatic” performing, transmission and broadcasting rights in the musical works of its members and the members of its affiliated societies.

MCSK is a member of the International Confederation of Societies of Authors and Composers (CISAC), which gives the organisation access to fully represent the interests of Kenyan composers, authors and publishers internationally. The association is affiliated to over 200 global collecting societies for public performance or mechanical reproduction rights. MCSK has a membership base in excess of 3000 composers and authors locally.

MCSK plays a vital role in adding value to the music industry and positively impacting the livelihoods of all our composers and authors.

We are a world-class African society with a commitment to solid management, cost-effective services as well as quality business ethics and values.

For a long time musical works enjoyed no legal protection, and their composers suffered great injustice - Mozart died in abject poverty, and was buried in a mass grave for paupers, at the very time when people over the world were making big money from the performance of his works.

The tragic injustice of these and other cases led to a world-wide movement to protect composers and give them an equitable remuneration for the use of their works. It is today generally recognised that an enlightened copyright law, to protect the things of the spirit as well as the material ones, is one of the characteristics of a civilised community. Most of the civilised countries of the world have joined the International Copyright Union, to ensure reciprocal “copyright protection” for each other’s musical works. One of these is Kenya, and therefore our legislation includes a special copyright act.

“The word “copyright” is used to describe the complex of rights which the creator of an original “work of the spirit” has in his/her product; and by “works of the spirit” we mean creations of artistic genius - literary, dramatic, musical and artistic works. The creators of such works - our authors, dramatists, composers, lyricists, painters and sculptors - depend for their living on the exploitation of these rights.

Just as the labourer is worthy of his/her hire, so is the creator entitled to an equitable remuneration for the use of his/her work by others. In the case of a musical work, the most important of these rights can be conveniently grouped under three headings:

(i) the graphic right, i.e. the right to print or publish the music;

(ii) the reproduction right, i.e. the right to record the music; and

(iii) the performing right, i.e. the right to perform music in public, including the right to broadcast it.

It is the last-mentioned right with which MCSK is concerned. In other words, MCSK controls the right of performances of music in public, broadcasting and transmission.

Before the invention of the gramophone and the radio, the composer’s main income consisted of royalties on the sale of sheet music.

Electronic and digital means of performance have, however, largely displaced sheet music, so that these sales are now-a-days very small. To some extent the royalties on the sale of recordings have replaced those on the sale of sheet music. Moreover, modern methods of communication like broadcasting can use a single recording to entertain an audience of thousands or millions. This considerably limits the sales of recordings, and therefore the royalties earned. As a result of these developments, the composer’s principal source of livelihood today is the performing right royalty, a fee payable by anyone who performs his/her music in public.