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Miriam Makeba guns for SABC
15/10/2007 09:34 - (SA)
Lumka Oliphant
Johannesburg - Entertainment Music icon Miriam Makeba and SABC1 are involved in a copyright fight that promises to end in a bitter court battle.
Makeba's manager, Dumisani Motha, is an angry man after the channel on Monday flighted the diva's show, Miriam at Bern Salonger, allegedly without proper copyright clearance.
Motha claims that the SABC has been broadcasting the singer's work without a licence since she came back from exile.
"MaMakeba owns all the African rights to the work but the SABC continues to broadcast her work without obtaining permission from her," said Motha.
He said this was not the first time the SABC had "stolen" the award-winning singer's work.
"They did it with Amandla, they did it with the South Bank show, whose mechanical rights are owned by the UK's Channel 4, and they know that the African rights are owned by Makeba. But they continue to be arrogant about the whole issue and have never apologised to her," said Motha.
'Serious issues'
He said for Makeba, who is performing in Burkina Faso today, "these are serious issues".
"It is her work and anybody who wishes to use her work is supposed to get a licence from her.
"The fact that the material is sitting in their archives does not mean they have the licence to use it.
"They don't care about her intellectual property," he said.
Motha said, when Makeba turned 75 this year, they offered the SABC a licence to broadcast some of her work, but they refused.
"They had all the time and we were willing to give them a licence but they think they can do as they please and can just decide to broadcast the show."
SABC1 general manager Ray Nkwe denied they did not have a licence to broadcast the show.
He said that, as far as they were concerned, they had three licences from the Makeba company, received on March 1 2006.
- City Press
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South Africa
