The Botswana Musicians Union (BOMU) is implementing a multi-purpose web-based system which is expected to prevent music piracy and help local artists to sell their music locally and internationally.
Paradigm Shift Logistics, a locally-based company, has initiated the system expected to function as a music portal with features of international music websites such as www.itunes, amazon.com and others.
BOMU President, Alfred Mosinegape, said the new project, which will enable artists to have websites within BOMU websites, will create and offer an opportunity to musicians to sell their music digitally. He said artists should log into www.bomu.tk in order to register their profiles in the portal.
“The project is expected to change the status of the music industry, which is a disgrace due to piracy,” he said.
Although the country has a strong Copyright Act, it seems to have not worked positively for the industry and BOMU, in collaboration with Paradigm Shift Logistics company, initiated the music portal to address the issue.
“This is definitely a great opportunity for musicians not only to make a decent living but to actually make a lot of money since the choice of music is now made by listeners all over the world and they will buy what they want and no-one can manipulate that,” said the manager Paradigm Shift Logistics, Charles Opeya.
┬á“It is now up to the musicians to not only produce quality music but to also market themselves through social networks like Facebook and also take advantage of this platform where they can sell music 24hrs non-stop, cutting out many of the middle-men who exploit them,” said the manager.
He said the new project will also reduce the heavy costs associated with production of CDs and CD covers.
“Other than that, we do have a technology called DRM (digital rights management) which is an added feature the musicians can have added to their music to protect it from being copied,” Opeya said.
He said artists are expected a minimal administration fee of P500 per year as a special for one month and it will go up later.
“Apart from preventing piracy, the project will enable the artists to market themselves and their events, communicate with their fans, display their calendar and so on,” he said.
Opeya said there is a built in Billboard for most downloaded, most listened to, most popular artist and such like activities and this will assist in the upcoming Bomu Music Awards.
