In a heated up meeting held on Thursday, music artists demanded that Uganda Performing Rights Society (UPRS) should be scrapped off from the face of the music industry. Ugandan artists especially those that subscribe to UPRS wrote a petition with signatures of various artists including Radio, Cindy, Pallaso, Mesach Semakula, Angela Kalule and Silver Kyagulanyi among others calling for suspension of UPRS which they believe is full of irregularities.
UPRS is a society that was formed to advance the cause of copyright administration in Uganda, to protect foreign and local works falling within their repertoire in Uganda. It also seeks to protect artists from losing their royalties. Artists blame UPRS of collecting lots of money over UShs500M annually from major music consumers but a few top artists benefit from it.
“We need a clear digestion of UPRS works before we get to a worse situation”, one musician cried out in the meeting.
“We are tired of being represented by old people,” Mozey Radio said as he gave his submission. Radio added that UPRS is irrelevant because he writes his music and pays for production but a committee waits for money from his own made work. In the same meeting, the newly formed Save Uganda Music elected new committee members with Julius Kyazze as the chairperson and Angela kalule as his vice. Other committee members include, Silver Kyangulanyi as Secretary and Legal Manager, Douglas Lwanga as treasurer, Bushingtone as speaker, Mesach Semakula as advisory board among others.
