Uganda’s Artistes fume at UPRS
UPRS
By Drone media writer
Ugandan performing artistes and creatives are bitter with the Uganda Performing Rights Society (UPRS) for not paying them their money for the year 2021 and 2022.
The artistes registered and attended the UPRS annual general meeting that took place at the Uganda National theatre on Friday 16th-january-2023.
During a lunch break, some artistes held a brief press conference and protested against UPRS and said they will not leave National Theatre if they don’t give them the money.
One of them Laneck Dennis, a Gospel artiste said he came expecting to be paid at least sh1, 200,000 because the available money is enough to be shared by all members.
“I came expecting to be paid because am a registered member. These people do not know what gospel artistes go through because most of them are broke as they have know avenues of making money,” he said.
Dancehall artiste Khalifa Aganaga said he was expecting to be paid sh5, 000,000 because he has over 40 songs on the local market.
“I need my money. I will not accept any money less than 5, 00,000,” he told Journalists that attended the meeting.
During the meeting the UPRS board showed members that they had sh247,000,000 they collected in 2021 and 2022 on behalf of all members
At the meeting, UPRS board explained to them that they couldn’t pay them during the meeting because they wanted to use the meeting to ask members on the criteria that will be followed to give them the money.
According to the available data, the collecting body has a membership of 5000 members countrywide, but they had not yet agreed on the formular to determine how much each member will get because they don’t have a digital data system which shows how many times songs of members were played by a radio or TV station in those two years.
Other members proposed that the money should be used to be borrowed by the bank for one year as they come up with a system or criteria which they will use to determine how much each member will be getting.
But they all failed to agree on what the money should be used for and this issue was postponed until further notice.