On July 22 2013, the Zimbabwe Music Rights Association (ZIMURA) in partnership with the Culture Fund of Zimbabwe Trust and African Regional Intellectual Property Organization (ARIPO), held a copyright awareness workshop for public prosecutors with the main purpose being to highlight the provisions of the Copyright and Neighboring Rights Act of 2004, and how it should be implemented by prosecutors. The workshop also sought to establish a Copyright Awareness Program that will help aggregate the efforts of other stakeholders with those of public prosecutors. Stakeholders participating included ZIMURA, ARIPO, Zimbabwe Intellectual Property Organization (ZIPO), Zimbabwe Republic Police (ZRP), composers, and public prosecutors from Zimbabwean cities including Rusape, Bindura Gwanda, Bulawayo, Chinhoyi, Beitbridge, among others.
ZIMURA is a collective management society established in 1982 with the aim of protecting the interests of musicians. Its mandate is to ensure that creators, composers, and producers of sound recordings are adequately remunerated for the use of their works. As a collective administrator of copyright, ZIMURA has a membership of over 2200 rights holders and over 150,000 works have been registered for protection.
Speaking at the event Culture Fund Programmes Officer Chipo Muvezwa said “As part of its technical support to the sector the Culture Fund has been collaborating with Zimbabwe Music Rights Association (ZIMURA) as well as with the African regional Intellectual Property Organization (ARIPO) and the Ministry of Justice through the Registrar General’s office for implementation of capacity building initiatives focusing on copyright, intellectual property, and related rights activities. We have been collaborating in the implementation of such capacity building initiatives these over the past 5 years, in the process restructuring and strengthening the content and making these workshops more relevant and needs driven and not just routine. To a much larger extent, the fight against piracy necessitates a partnership approach with stakeholders, including collecting societies, national police forces, public prosecutors, magistrates and customs officers.”
The workshop was in line with the Culture Fund’s mandate to promote Human and Artists Rights. The Culture Fund through programme partnerships with the EU delegation in Harare and the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (Sida) is in active cooperation with civil society, Government and partner development agencies; using the culture dimension to show the strengths and progressive nature of Zimbabwe and making an important contribution to achieving sustainable development through promoting artists and human rights.
Zimbabwe Music Rights Association Hosts Copyright Awareness Workshop
Culture Fund of Zimbabwe Trust,
29 July 2013, Zimbabwe