Durban - Fed up with her music being pirated, a local gospel-maskandi artist, Bonakele Masango, has hired a private security firm to find and deal with people who steal her music.
Speaking to The Mercury on Monday, Masango said artists had lost millions of rands through piracy and it angered them that government policies that were supposed to protect their work were failing.
Masango, who recently released a CD titled Nguwe Baba, said the pirates had become extremely arrogant and had the audacity to attack musicians who confronted them after seeing their “hard work” sold in the streets.
“Instead of arresting the culprits, you find the artists being charged,” she said.
“We are not allowed to take the law in our own hands.”
In 2011, gospel artist Lusanda Mcinga spent a night in holding cells after beating someone who sold pirated CDs.
“Seeing that my hands were tied, I decided to hire Ithunzi Protection Services to be on the lookout for such people,” Masango said.
“We lose a lot. We end up looking like people who cannot manage their finances while, in fact, people steal from us.”
Masango’s original CD will have the logo of the security company engraved on it.
Ithunzi Protection Service owner Vusumuzi Duma said Section 49 of the Criminal Procedure Act granted them the right to arrest anyone found with the pirated work.
He said they had formed a counterfeit task team that would deal with the pirates.
“They will disguise themselves and pretend to be potential customers and if they find Bonakele’s CD, the vendor would then be arrested.
“We have seen how these pirates and vendors pulled stunts like attacking musicians. We will give them what they deserve. The law allows us to exert minimum force,” he said.
Duma said they would arrest the street sellers and demand to be shown where the CDs were produced. They would then confiscate the equipment and the CDs so that would be available as evidence in court.
Various government and private organisations have led campaigns around the country to combat piracy, and the battle seems far from over.
According to the Southern African Federation Against Copyright Theft’s 2014 report, 894 arrests were made and only 93 suspects were convicted that year. The report said the estimated annual loss to the local music industry was about R7.5 million.
The Mercury
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