MUSIC PIRACY

Music industry as we all know is one of the highest paying industries worldwide. The reason being almost everyone listens to music despite the type: secular or gospel. Kenya‘s music industry is the least paying profession due to piracy.

Our musician’s livelihoods are being threatened in our own country. I wonder why a musician should spend sleepless nights trying to come up with something new, creative, unique and stylish while the pirates are just seated waiting to take advantage of the finished product. Why can’t we respect our local musician’s talents? It pains our local musicians to see their original DVD worth 500/= sold at 20/= on the streets in downtowns  Nairobi.

Music pirates who copy CDs as soon as they are released and sell them on the streets have a stranglehold on the market that musicians cannot break, making it nearly impossible for them to profit from direct sales of legitimate recordings. As a result of this, international records labels and music companies have abandoned Kenya as a non- viable market for their products because of piracy. Kenyan markets are often flooded with counterfeit CDs and tapes within days, if not hours or minutes of new releases becoming available. This is the most depressing of all for our local musicians.

This has left our local musicians miserable and shattered most people’s dreams because they are forced to live in shanty, slums or single rooms because they can’t afford to live the celebrity life because of someone else stealing their rights of making money and living big.

Fellow Kenyans, lets reap what we sow, respect talents, music, creativity and a musicians right to earn a living honestly.

Bye Evelyn