Phone users can download and pay for ringtones
Ugandan musicians are up in arms over their share of benefits from the Caller Ring Back Tone (CRBT) scheme.
Purchasable ringtones, usually snatches of popular songs, generate a lot of money – up to $20m (£17m) in Uganda in 2019 – according to the Ugandan National Cultural Forum.
That money gets shared among the telecom companies, the government and the artists who create the music.
But the musicians feel cheated, saying their proportion of the profits is too small and the Ugandan Musicians Association has petitioned the government asking for a larger share.
“When it comes to tax collection, the taxman takes 50% of earnings,” Phina Mugerwa, musician and secretary of the association, told BBC Focus on Africa radio.
“Telco companies take 35%. The artist, the owner of the work, gets 1.8%,” she explained.
“We are appealing to the justice ministry that at least we should get 60%.
“You see musicians [have] big names but they don’t have money.”
-BBC
