Establishment of copyright collection society for the music sector

The ethiopian music sector associations union formerly known as the ethiopian music association has been leading the movements on the drafting of the ethiopian copyright law which protects the intellectual property of the artists and recently took a huge step on the establishment of the copyrights collective society. the union is a coalition of three independent associations which are the ethiopian music authors association‟, the ethiopian music performers association‟ and the ethiopian sound recording producers association‟. during the establishing process that took decades, the music associations along with its supporters and copyrights activists were able to have the copyright and neighboring rights protection proclamation no.410/2004 was also enacted in 2004. even though the laws that favor musicians and creators in the music industry were passed, the implementation took many more years. a group of musicians led by the late music producer, author, and guitarist elias melka fought harder to make the laws known by the music community and decisive government authorities for the implementation of the laws and the establishment of the music copyright neighboring-rights collective management organization. after three years of severe struggle in december 2019, the ethiopian music sectors association union led by these fierce musicians finally succeeded in the establishment of the ethiopian music copyrights and neighboring rights collective management organization. the newly established cmo has been since working on making music royalty fees a reality in ethiopia for the first time ever. the association has also begun to set up collaboration and discussion with notable organizations such as wipo /world intellectual property organization, and bmat spain based cmo regarding the implementation of royalty in ethiopian order to receive technology support and other related training.