The Deputy Speaker of Parliament, Thomas Tayebwa, has tasked Government through the Attorney General, Kiryowa Kiwanuka, to table the the Copyright and Neighbouring Rights bill blaming delays on the government side.
Tayebwa says that the Bill was initially proposed and drafted as private Members bill by Mawokota North MP Hillary Kiyaga who agreed to merge his amendments with those of government into one.
However, Tayebwa says that government has not played its part , delaying Kiyaga whose Bill is ready for the first reading.
This is after the parliamentary Committee on Information, Communication Technology and National Guidance (ICT) presented a report on the petition by the Uganda National Musicians Federation on amendments to the Copyrights and Neighbouring Rights Act, 2006.
The report presented by the vice chairperson of the committee, Tonny Ayoo, was in agreement with petitioners on the need to revise charges for caller ring-back tunes (CRBTs) to ensure a fairer distribution of revenue in the percentage to be retained by artists.
The committee also established that there were no standard formulas for determining the sharing of revenue from caller ring-back tunes and as a result, artists were being cheated.
The committee further observed that despite unfair share for artists, they were subjected to delayed or non-payment and faced challenges in directly suing telecommunication companies for payments under CRBTs because of lack of direct dealings with the operators.
