samro overview

The Southern African Music Rights Organisation (SAMRO) was established in 1961 with the objective to protect the intellectual property of composers and authors, as well as to ensure that composers and authors talents are adequately credited both locally and internationally for music usage. The organisation is the primary representative of music performing rights in Southern Africa.

SAMRO plays a vital role in the administration of works, distribution of royalties and promotes copyright law of composers and authors works, through the collection of license fees from television broadcasters, radio stations, in-store radio stations, pubs, clubs, retailers, restaurants and all other businesses who broadcast music.

 The organisation functions as a collective administration society that negotiates music user licenses. Its main role is to administer the “non-dramatic” performing, transmission and broadcasting rights in the musical works of its members and the members of its affiliated societies.

SAMRO is a member of the International Confederation of Societies of Authors and Composers (CISAC), which gives the organisation access to fully represent the interests of South African composers, authors and publishers internationally. The association is affiliated to over 200 global collecting societies for public performance or mechanical reproduction rights. SAMRO has a membership base in excess of 7000 composers and authors of all nationalities in Southern Africa.

SAMRO plays a vital role in adding value to the music industry and positively impacting the livelihoods of all our composers and authors.

We are a world-class African society with a commitment to solid management, cost-effective services as well as quality business ethics and values.

history

“The word “copyright” is used to describe the complex of rights which the creator of an original “work of the spirit” has in his/her product; and by “works of the spirit” we mean creations of artistic genius - literary, dramatic, musical and artistic works. The creators of such works - our authors, dramatists, composers, lyricists, painters and sculptors - depend for their living on the exploitation of these rights.

Just as the labourer is worthy of his/her hire, so is the creator entitled to an equitable remuneration for the use of his/her work by others. In the case of a musical work, the most important of these rights can be conveniently grouped under three headings:

(i) the graphic right, i.e. the right to print or publish the music;

(ii) the reproduction right, i.e. the right to record the music; and

(iii) the performing right, i.e. the right to perform the music in public, including the right to broadcast it.

It is the last-mentioned right with which SAMRO is concerned. In other words, SAMRO controls the right of performances of music in public, broadcasting and transmission.

Before the invention of the gramophone and the radio, the composer’s main income consisted of royalties on the sale of sheet music.

Electronic and digital means of performance have, however, largely displaced sheet music, so that these sales are now-a-days very small. To some extent the royalties on the sale of recordings have replaced those on the sale of sheet music. Moreover, modern methods of communication like broadcasting can use a single recording to entertain an audience of thousands or millions. This considerably limits the sales of recordings, and therefore the royalties earned. As a result of these developments, the composer’s principal source of livelihood today is the performing right royalty, a fee payable by anyone who performs his/her music in public.