South African musicians are celebrating a great milestone following the announcement that the Southern African Music Rights Organisation (Samro) will receive royalties from popular social media platforms, including Facebook, Netflix and TikTok.
Samro made the announcement on Wednesday after concluding a licensing agreements with the streaming platforms.
“Samro is pleased to announce that we have entered into licensing agreements with short-form video content social media platform TikTok, global social media powerhouse Facebook, as well as the video streaming subscription platform Netflix, that will benefit members,” said Samro chairperson Nicholas Maweni.
He added: “Thanks to the conclusion of these binding agreements, Samro will be able to collect royalties on behalf of members, for all copyright-protected content that features on these platforms, with immediate effect.”
Maweni said that before the conclusion of these ground-breaking deals, platforms such as Facebook prohibited the use of copyright-protected content on their networks.
He continued: “This deal is going to enrich these platforms through the use of high-quality content produced by our members while at the same time broadening the scope and usage of member content.
“It is absolutely essential that as Samro we license all music users and ensure that we deliver maximum value to our members.
“The technological evolution we are experiencing is a welcome development, as it creates new avenues through which the public can experience creative works while at the same opening up new opportunities for our members.”
Maweni said Samro’s deals with TikTok, Netflix and Facebook followed an arrangement with search engine Google.
“Samro board is committed to efficiently administering music rights on behalf of music composers, authors and publishers,” said Maweni.